King Mohammed VI affirmed that the Moroccan Sahara has always constituted “a link between Morocco and its African depth on the human, cultural and economic levels”, and took the opportunity to underline the importance of the Morocco-Morocco gas pipeline project. Nigeria which will bring peace, energy security and economic development to 15 African countries.
In a speech, Sunday evening, to the Nation on the occasion of the 47th anniversary of the Green March, focusing on all the large-scale social, economic and cultural achievements in the Moroccan Sahara, which have favored the development of the southern regions of the Kingdom, the Sovereign reiterated Morocco’s attachment to African depth.
This link, which is made through the Moroccan Sahara, is the engine of the development efforts carried out which make it possible to “consolidate this historical role in a firm and lasting way and, beyond that, to place it in a perspective resolutely turned towards the future”, he said.
In this sense, the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline project launched in 2016 by King Mohammed VI and the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Bouhari, is definitely in line with this orientation which will develop the common interests of several West African countries. .
The Memorandum of Understanding, signed recently in Rabat, with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and, in Nouakchott with Mauritania and Senegal, marks an essential milestone in the process of carrying out the project. , supported King Mohammed VI, stressing that this memorandum reflects the commitment of the countries concerned to ” contribute to the realization of this strategic project and it illustrates their political will to ensure its success”.
For the Kingdom, the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline represents “more than a bilateral project between two brotherly countries”, underlined the Sovereign, expressing the wish that it be a profitable strategic project for the whole of the region of West Africa, that is to say more than 440 million inhabitants.
A project, the King said, for present and future generations and which works in favor of peace, the economic integration of the African continent and its common development because in addition to Morocco and Mauritania, this Gas Pipeline offers the fifteen ECOWAS countries, “opportunities and guarantees in terms of energy security and socio-economic and industrial development”and will link Africa to Europe.
To this end, the Sovereign affirmed “Morocco’s concern to always act, in concert with Our brothers in Nigeria and all the partners, in full transparency and responsibility, so that this project is implemented as soon as possible”.
” We therefore welcome the support of regional and international financial institutions which have expressed the wish to provide effective support for its implementation,” declared King Mohammed VI expressing his receptivity to any form of fruitful partnership aimed at carrying out this large-scale African project.