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Benefitting greatly from rising oil prices and production over the last decade, Saudi Arabia has used its sizeable revenues to build up strong external buffers and drive GDP growth through extensive spending programmes. The decline in oil prices that began in mid-2014, however, has significantly lowered export revenues and brought the era of fiscal surpluses to a close. The resulting altered economic landscape and growing demographic pressures have presented the recently reorganised government with a significant test, and its response has been to set in motion a series of the most wide-ranging reforms in the nation’s history. Moving forward the country’s Vision 2030 calls for a major shift in the way the Kingdom’s economy operates, moving from a system of state-led growth and centralised planning to a more open market framework where the private sector takes up a leading role in economic expansion. This chapter contains interviews with Prince Turki bin Saud bin Mohammed Al Saud, President, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology; Khaled Al Araj, Minister of Civil Service; and Abdulkarim Al Nujaidi, Director-General, Human Resource Development Fund.

Ensuring access to education has been a prime objective for Morocco over the past couple of decades, and recent indicators show significant progress. This comes on the back of major efforts to reform the education system through strategies such as the National Charter of Education 1999-2005 and the Emergency Plan 2009-12. The government has also maintained a high level of public spending on the sector. In the short to medium term, the public sector will remain the main provider in Morocco, while the private sector will continue to depend on political will to encourage its growth and attract more students. Collaboration between both sectors will be key to addressing capacity and quality shortfalls. Vocational training is also likely to continue playing a major role in providing an alternative to mainstream education, as well as in putting new graduates into a market where needs for qualified labour are constantly evolving. This chapter contains an interview with Hervé Biausser, President, CentraleSupélec and Vice-President, Ecole Centrale Casablanca.

Since its liberalisation in 1997, Morocco’s telecoms sector has experienced substantial growth driven by the entry of new operators, a rapid increase in mobile subscribers and rising consumption of voice and data services. Despite the sector’s potential, user revenue growth has slowed in recent years due to fierce price competition among the main providers. Operators seeking new springboards for growth are therefore exploring a capital-intensive push towards data offerings. In the IT sector, having made an early drive for development in the mid-1990s, Morocco has managed to carve out a sizeable niche for itself in selected areas such as offshoring and electronic payments. The government is now working on a new strategy, Plan Maroc Numeric 2020 – a successor to the previous Plan Maroc Numeric 2013 – aimed at building on the country’s international position in cost-competitive IT services, while emphasising greater diversification and entrepreneurship. This chapter contains an interview with Nadia Fassi-Fehri, CEO, Inwi.

This chapter introduces potential foreign investors to the different aspects of the legal system in Morocco. This chapter contains a viewpoint from Romain Berthon and Lina Fassi-Fihri, Partners, Lefèvre Pelletier & associés, on participatory democracy in action.

This chapter provides an overview of Morocco’s taxation system and examines its investor-friendly business environment. This chapter contains an interview with Kamal Mokdad, Managing Partner; and a viewpoint from Asma Charki, Partner, Mazars Morocco, on Casablanca Finance City.