General Manager of Casablanca Stock Exchange, Hajj Karim has assured that the economies of countries belonging to the Economic Community of West African State (ECOWAS) will be strengthened with Morocco's re-integration into the system.

According to him, Morocco’s re-entry to ECOWAS will further contribute to reinforcing the institution through the country’s attractive raw material production especially, it’s vibrant auto-mobile industry.

On Morocco’s main export, Hajj Karim asserted that, “I think Morocco joining ECOWAS will contribute to further strengthening ECOWAS. We have a diversified economy and as you know we don’t rely only on raw materials but we have an industry... In fact today, Morocco’s first export is the auto-mobile industry.”

Hajj Karim spoke to www.ghanaweb.com at a conference in Accra themed “Moroccan Accession to ECOWAS- Towards a strengthening of the West African Community.”

The conference, organized by Amadeus Institute in partnership with think tank, IMANI was to continue the dialogue and debate series on Morocco's decision to rejoin the West African body, ECOWAS. The meeting, according to a press release is to pursue the current efforts in analyzing and providing scientific inputs to the discussion of Morocco’s accession to ECOWAS, highlighting the main obstacles and opportunities at stake.

He suggested that with Ghana, for instance, trade partnerships between both countries will help reduce the unemployment situation which has been the headache of various governments.

Mr. Karim reiterated that there are many areas which can be looked at aside the auto world. He cited the food industry like cocoa which is one of Ghana’s largest export as an example.

He, therefore, urged local producers to look beyond exporting just cocoa beans but rather envision trading locally made chocolate or paste with other countries. This, to him, would add value to the finished product.

Hajj Karim, who seemed to look forward to a fruitful partnership said, “As you know, one of our challenges, even in Africa, is creating jobs for the young people. 70% of the African population is under the age of 30 which is a huge challenge for all the governments including ECOWAS. We need to create jobs to have stability, economic growth and to give opportunities to the young and women also. So Morocco is committed to looking at that and creating more local value.”