An Examination of Morocco's Trade Options with the EU

Posted: 16 Jun 2008

See all articles by G. Philippidis

G. Philippidis

Government of Aragón, Spain

A.I. Sanjuán

Independent

Date Written: March 2007

Abstract

As a moderate North African Arab state, Morocco has ratified preferential free trade agreements with both the EU and the USA. However, the potential importance of improved agro-food market access with the EU has been largely ignored in Morocco-EU Association Agreement (MEAA). Indeed, in comparison with the depth of the agro-food reforms in the Morroco-US agreement, the MEAA is largely incomplete. Accordingly, as a first objective we employ a modified computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to assess the potential for further long run trade and growth in Morocco through agro-food tariff abolition. Moreover, we investigate whether there is an economic incentive for such a EU countermovement to restore competitive parity with the US. As a further aim, we examine the trade inhibiting implications of non-tariff barrier (NTB) trade costs (e.g., red tape, licensing laws etc.), which have hitherto largely escaped reform. Thus, we estimate NTB trade cost tariff equivalents (TEs) employing a theoretically consistent gravity specification. TEs are implemented into our CGE model to measure the trade and growth impacts from NTB removal in agro-food and across all Moroccan-EU trade. While agro-food liberalisation yields disappointing results for Morocco, the potential for development-led policies through elimination of NTBs is highly appealing.

Keywords: F1, F12, F15, F17

Suggested Citation

Philippidis, G. and Sanjuán, A.I., An Examination of Morocco's Trade Options with the EU (March 2007). Journal of African Economies, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 259-300, 2007, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1146030 or http://dx.doi.org/ejl021

G. Philippidis (Contact Author)

Government of Aragón, Spain ( email )

Centro de Investigación y
Tecnología Agroalimentaria (CITA)
Zaragoza, 50059, Aragón
Spain

A.I. Sanjuán

Independent

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