The potential for ICT-development in Morocco

Morocco has made offshoring the number one economic development priority within its “Emergence” program. The government is heavily investing in human and physical capital and has undertaken important regulatory reforms in order to move the country towards becoming a knowledge economy. Many of these investments in, for example, telecommunication networks and higher education are now sunk and do not have to be considered any more when deciding on future-oriented governmental initiatives. What remains to be determined, though, is how public authorities can further improve the regulatory set-up and provide an enabling business environment in order for the private sector to take over the lead in propelling Morocco in the desired direction of becoming the “nearshoring” destination of choice for companies in francophone (and to a lesser extent hispanophone) Europe. This paper aims to contribute to the policy dialogue by describing and evaluating recent and prospective developments concerning ICT-enabled services exports in the context of Morocco’s growth and competitiveness agenda. The discussion is thereby comprehensive, covering software production, back-office processing, and call centers. The findings are being related to the performance of comparator countries in order to put them into a broader perspective.