Rabat -

A few weeks ago, the world watched the three young Moroccans, Salah El-Din, Ayman and Mohsen, winning the first prize for the NASA International Challenge for Space Applications.

Foz was cited by the Minister of Digital Transition, Gita Mezoor, during the ceremony to launch a national brand for digital promotion of the Kingdom. "Our youth are smart, hardworking and trained in the latest information technology technologies... Moroccan youth are talented and eager to make a difference," she said.

So are Morocco's youth making a difference by making their country an internationally preferred digital platform and destination?

Will this brand help in the digital transformation in Morocco and accelerate its pace?

What are the opportunities offered by this step?

technology producer

Morocco launched, Friday, January 14th, in Rabat, the national brand for the promotion of the digital sector, "MoroccoTech", at the initiative of the delegated ministry in charge of digital transformation and management reform.

In the speech of Mazur, Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister in charge of Digital Transition and Administration Reform, said that "Morocco Tech" is a brand that will help highlight what Moroccan digital technology can offer, noting that it is a vision to promote the Kingdom as a distinct technological product and a leading investment destination.

For his part, the economic expert, Abdul Nabi Abu Al-Arab, considered, in an interview with Al-Jazeera Net, that "Morocco Tech" is a sign of a nation in order to market and promote Morocco as a global platform for the production of digital services and the production and localization of content, and to attract global investments at this level.

In a statement to Al Jazeera Net, digital marketing expert Mounir Jazouli believes that the initiative to launch a national brand is an ambitious and structuring initiative that contributes to strengthening and accelerating the digital transformation in Morocco, and is transversal and comprehensive.

Jazouli believes that Alalama's bet is to transform Morocco into a digital nation that produces technology, not just consumers.

Amin Zarrouk during his presentation at the launch event of "Morocco Tech" (Al Jazeera)

Regional Leadership

In an interview with Al Jazeera Net, Amine Zarrouk, head of the Federation of Information and Communication Technologies and Ported Services (APEBI), explains that Morocco aims to strengthen its position as a regional digital hub through the "Morocco Tech" brand, which he said is "not just a brand, it's a movement." ambition, a social project, and a national cause.

He mentioned that the Federation of Information and Communication Technologies and Migrated Services (representative of the private sector) was established 32 years ago, which is among the indicators, according to the same spokesman, of the sector's maturity.

He added that Morocco Tech comes to value and consolidate the "enormous" achievements, integrating them into a stronger comprehensive system, with a focus on the strong partnership between the public and private sectors.

Morocco is a major regional digital hub.

It has one of the best ICT infrastructures on the African continent, the best IT talents and successful startups.

The Kingdom is also one of the best overseas destinations in Africa, according to the Minister of Digital Transition.

Morocco ranks first in terms of internet coverage and quality, among the 3 countries in Africa.

The Internet penetration rate is 93%, with an annual increase of 17%.

The number of optical fiber subscribers is increasing by 81.91% annually.

It is also the third largest offshoring destination on the continent.

The sector provides more than 120,000 jobs and more than $1.5 billion in export sales.

Forger: "Morocco Tech" is a brand that will help highlight what Moroccan digital technology can offer (Al Jazeera)

New digital generation

Zarrouk pointed out that Morocco has a new generation of leaders (both private and institutional) who have realized the urgency of digital transformation.

The head of the Federation of Information and Communication Technology stated that the private sector in the digital field invests twice as much, unlike other fields.

Zarrouk clarified that "Morocco Tech" will act as a platform for systems to unify their efforts in training, investment, regulation, infrastructure and innovation.

It will allow intensifying the training of talents and giving them more opportunities to create their own start-ups or work on innovative technological projects.

The previous government had adopted a roadmap entitled "Memorandum of general directions for digital development in Morocco on the horizon 2025" in order to accelerate digital transformation workshops.

The objectives were to establish an efficient and effective digital management.

A set of workshops included training a new generation of 50,000 young talents, consolidating Morocco's position as a digital and technological reference hub at the African level, and breaking digital isolation from the inhabitants of villages and remote areas.

The Development Model Committee believes that digital technology is an essential tool for change and development, and that Morocco's ambition is to become a digital country by 2025.

◀️ #MoroccoTech▶️


is an initiative stemming from a participatory approach between the public and private sectors that aims to make Morocco an internationally distinguished #digital_destination and to create an inclusive dynamic that will benefit all Moroccan sectoral systems in their #digital transformation.@ApebiMaroc @AusimMaroc @Technopark @CGEM_MA @amdie_agency #Add pic .twitter.com/PUWKq6lC1X

— Ministère Délégué auprès du CG chargé de la TN&RA (@Ministere_TNRA) January 14, 2022

horizontal strip

Regarding the size of the digital sector, experts consider it a comprehensive sector that penetrates all sectors, and it is difficult to enumerate it.

It is known that Moroccans are using more and more remote shopping, as commercial transactions jumped by 40% during 2021, and that the sectors are moving towards digitalization, supported by investments led by government sectors.

It is noteworthy that government sectors have been digitized, such as customs, taxes, courts, and others.

The digital sector is described as being horizontal and includes a group of components: the offshoring sector, marketing, digital communication and e-commerce, the software and games sector, and the crypto money sector.

It also includes "free actors" such as content creators on the Internet, online consulting, website development, and other areas.

The Arab Monetary Fund says that measuring the economic contribution of the digital economy is one of the most important challenges facing the countries of the world, due to the difficulty of identifying and measuring the various economic dimensions of the digital economy.

Despite this, there are some irregular statistics that indicate estimates of the size of the digital economy at the global level, by the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program, at about 15.5% of the total global GDP in 2019.