Rainy Sunday in Tokyo and ruminating about the Moroccan economy

Tokyo Shinjuku 26/03/2017. 

 My moods are tightly and directly dependent on the weather, or more specifically on the sun's "appearance". For me, seeing the sun and feeling its warmth and its rays blinding my eyes is indispensable for my happiness. But today, the sun didn't show up over Tokyo, stormy grey and ugly day. Sundays are already "grey" and boring, and when the sky gets upset, it leaves me down and nostalgic to my "always" sunny country Morocco.

 Looking at the statistics it seems that saying that Morocco is "always" sunny could be a slight exaggeration, according to the weather forecasting website: weather-and-climate.com, Morocco enjoys over 200 hours of a monthly hours of sunshine, with some differences according to seasons and regions. Now considering that the shortest day of the year is at around 9:30 hours long, and (with another exaggeration) if we estimate the day's hours of the month with the shortest days (which happens to be December) at 300 hours, we could say that 200 hours of sunshine, accounting of 2/3 of the monthly day’s hours, would justify my first exaggeration saying that my country is "almost" always sunny. 

 Living in Japan, I can see how "geographically" lucky my country is, sun alone is a source of "serotonin" to many, although we tend to go to the mosque and pray for rain when it delays to rain in the winter, since the agriculture sector still contributes by more than 13% to the country's GDP, according to the world bank latest data,  and since only 15% of the planted area is irrigated (according to the same source), the agriculture sector, and thus the GDP, depends heavily on the weather and rainfall fluctuations.

But lately, the sun is also turning out to be a good source of economic development, in 2009 the Moroccan government had lunched the "solar Moroccan plan" consisting of the construction of 5 power plants integrating the solar energy as means of electrical production, with the vision of reducing the country's import-dependencies of energy, and increasing the contribution of the renewable energies to 52% by 2030. In that context, Morocco has kick started the first phase of the three-plant Noor-Ouarzazate CSP complex in October 2015, expected to achieve over 500 megawatts and to place the country in the "forefront of countries using the concentrated solar power technology" writes the world bank. The technology uses the reflections of the sun's energy on hundreds of mirrors, to heat up a transfer liquid that is afterward used to produce electricity. The transfer liquid is also used to heat up molten salt up to 500ºC, which can preserve the heat up to 8 hours, and can then be used to generate steam in periods with less sunshine, as a way to be in line with the demand of electricity. 

Picture of the Moroccan solar power station Noor, Picture by Visit Morocco travel agency

 It always leaves me thinking how, on the papers, Morocco seems to be doing great as an economy, with a GDP per capita exceeding the 3000 $, ( The Moroccan per capita GDP has reached 3239.55 USD in 2015 according to TradingEconomies ). And then I remember a homeless man in his 40’s coming to dig in the garbage cans of the building where I live (or used to live) for some eatable food. He used to have a dog, and would come every day in early afternoons hoping to find some leftovers that he or his dog can eat. And he is far from being the only one, it’s enough to go through some less "popular" roads to sense the income gaps in the Moroccan society, although the term “income” seems to be a bit “miss-placed” for those who have the streets as their only shelter. They don’t have any income, they ask for coins from passing-by people to kill the hunger before it kills them, and when the winter starts blowing its cold winds, you see them moving around with large blankets that they get from some “good hearted” people. You can see young girls and older women with a child or more, having nothing more than a corner of the road where they sit waiting and hoping that someone will pass by and throw some coins to the for-long-not-fed kids.

A Moroccan young man searching for food in a garbage can. Picture by: France 24

 I used to think that there should be someone to help, to do something for these marginalized struggling-against-their-faith people. But then I realized that the problem’s perspectives are more complex to be tackled by a single “someone”. And after being part of the Japanese society for a year and a half, I can’t help but wonder what makes Japan a “successful” society where it’s rare, if not impossible to spot a homeless person, and considering the fact that, compared to Morocco, one can say that Japan is a geographically “unlucky” country, it leaves me thinking if it doesn’t all just comes down to what it is referred to as the “resource curse” that says that a country with bountiful natural resources can fall into the trap of a “delayed/prevented” industrialization, as the ruling elites might be tempted to take personal advantages and benefits from the country’s resources instead of using them to kick-start the industrialization.    

 It makes more sense to me to think about it from an other perspective, a country poor in natural resources is left with no choice but to invest in industrialization, importing raw materials and exporting finished goods. It reminds me of a friend of mine, who had survived a civil war in his country, lost his parents at a young age, nearly died to Malaria, and then grow up to become the CEO of his own start-up. When I once asked him about the thing he is the most grateful about, he undoubtedly said “I am grateful to not have a choice”. It amuses me to think that if Japan as a society and an economy could talk, it would certainly have the same answer as my inspiring friend. When Japan was left in ruins after the second world war in the early 40's, it had no choice but to engage in an economic recovery plan, involving both the Japanese government, the private industry (at the time represented by the Zaibatsu businesses that held a significant influence on the economy from the Meiji period (1868- 1912) up until the post-war period) and the MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry) that was established in 1949 to play the role of coordinating and formalizing the cooperation between the government and the Zaibatsu leading companies, guiding the country towards “an intersection of national production goals and private economic interests” Wikipedia.

 During this period of time, Morocco has just gained back its independence in 1956 after a 44 years long French colonization. However, it wasn’t until the actual king ‘Mohamed VI” ascended to the throne in 1999, that the country started engaging in real and intensive efforts of industrialization. Delayed industrialization? Probably so. Still today, 13 years after the industrial acceleration plan was launched in 2004 (with a view to increase the GDP contribution of 7 key export-oriented industrial sectors, create jobs and reinforce the competitiveness of the exported goods in the international market) the macro-economic indicators haven’t changed much. Despite the fact that the country is engaging in big projects (as an example: the French-made high speed train with a maximum speed of 200 miles/hour, connecting the two major economic hubs of the country: Tangier and Casablanca, which is 'the first of its kind in Africa' writes Cnn) , setting optimistic visions as objectives and attracting foreign investors from all over the world, the un-employment rate is stagnating at around 10%, and the country is still importing more than it exports, with a significant balance deficit, consuming more than it produces and doesn’t produce the large part of what it consumes. Poor people are still poor, homeless people are still homeless, and most probably, the 40 years old man is still eating out of the garbage can of my thousand-miles-away neighborhood. Until when?!

Instead, a more positively accurate question to ask would be what can the Moroccan government learn from Japan in terms of economic growth and tackling the poverty issue.

But this would require a reflection of its own, and definitely, an inspiration of a sunny day .