Morocco is largest winemaker in Muslim world

Morocco has become one of the largest winemakers in the Muslim world, with the equivalent of 35 million bottles produced last year. Wine brings the state millions in sales tax, even though Islam appears to be on the rise politically.

"Morocco is a country of tolerance," said Mehdi Bouchaara, the deputy general manager at the Celliers de Meknes, the country's largest winemaker, which bottles over 85 percent of national output. "It's everybody's personal choice whether to drink or not."

The Celliers have flourished on this tolerance. The firm now cultivates 5,189 acres of vineyards, bottling anything from entry-level table wine to homemade Champagne and even a high-end claret, Chateau Roslane, aged in a vaulted cellar packed with oak barrels imported from France. The winery now dwarfs any other producer in Europe.

On paper, wine is "Haram," or forbidden to Muslims. But Bouchaara said the firm's distribution is all legal since it only sells to traders authorized by the state, who in turn officially sell exclusively to non-Muslim tourists.

Statistics, however, show that Moroccans consume on average 1 liter (a quarter of a gallon) of wine per person each year, and the Moroccan state itself is the largest owner of the country's 29,652 acres of vineyards.

The paradox illustrates Morocco's delicate balancing act.

The fast-modernizing country thrives on tourism and trade with Europe, but its people remain deeply conservative. The country's ruler, King Mohammed VI, is also "commander of the believers" and protector of the faith. Islamists authorized to take part in politics are the second-largest force in parliament, while support for non-authorized groups is believed to be even larger.

Despite this uncertain setting for wine culture, the Celliers' owner, Brahim Zniber, is one of the country's richest people. His group employs 6,500 people, nearly all of them Muslim, and revenues rose to 225 million euros last year. Its three biggest sources of income are wine production with the Celliers de Meknes, hard liquor imports, and Coca-Cola bottling.

Zniber's latest ventures include the new Moroccan Champagne and plans to build a luxury hotel offering the country's first "vinotherapy" spa resort, with health care creams and baths based on grape products.

But the group has also tested the limits of the gray zone it operates in. The "Wine festival" it helped promote in 2007 caused protests in nearby Meknes, a deeply religious city of 500,000 run until recently by an Islamist mayor.

"The festival was an unnecessary provocation," said Aboubakr Belkora, the former mayor who was slammed by his own Islamist group, the Justice and Development Party, for halfheartedly authorizing the gathering in the center of town.

Elected in 2003, Belkora was removed this past January by the Interior Ministry because of allegations of mismanagement and graft. He denies the accusations, saying they were politically motivated. Belkora doesn't think he was punished because of the wine festival, but views authorities as wary of the Islamists' growing political clout.

"They don't want us to be too successful," he contended, noting that the administration picked his replacement from outside Islamist ranks.

The ex-mayor said that "for religious reasons," he uprooted about 247 acres of vineyards from his own fields but has no qualms with others making or drinking wine.

"There has always been an acceptance in Morocco, for wine, for homosexuality... you just don't need to advertise it," he said in an interview.

Others find there is some hypocrisy to the practice.

Hassan, a restaurant manager, who did not provide his last name, said he wasn't allowed a license to serve alcoholic drinks because he is Muslim. "But everyone knows we serve wine with our food," he said, pointing at the restaurant's patrons, both foreign and Moroccan, sipping their wine over dinner.

Another owner in Meknes, who also requested anonymity because of his practices, said he served wine in tinted glasses, kept bottles out of sight, and told clients to say they were drinking soft drinks if questioned. "Police rarely come, and if they do they never look inside the glass," he said.

These practices reflect a much more lenient culture than in other Muslim countries.

Alcohol is completely forbidden in hard-line Iran or Saudi Arabia. In Sudan, offenders regularly get sentenced to lashings in court. Even in nearby Algeria, another large wine producer, alcohol consumption is fast shrinking to just the capital and a few exclusive tourist resorts.

Within Morocco's more favorable context, the Celliers winery sells 27 million bottles per year, mostly in Morocco. Two million bottles head to Europe or the United States. The firm is planting another 1,977 acres of grapes to meet new demand from China, said Jean-Pierre Dehut, a former liquor-store owner in Belgium hired as the Celliers' export manager.

By the size of the huge new bottling plant it is building and the 450 people it employs, the Celliers is more on-par with the new, industrial-scaled wine businesses in Australia, Chile or California than with Europe's often family-owned domains. But Dehut stressed that Morocco has made wine for at least 2,500 years, since the Phoenicians colonized its coast. "This country exported wine to Rome during the Roman Empire," he said.

Wine making soared during the French colonial era, which lasted more than 50 years until the country's independence in 1956.

By then, hundreds of vineyards planted with French vines - mostly centered on the sunny plateau around Meknes in northern Morocco - churned out some 7.9 billion gallons each year.

Grapes produce more sugar, hence more alcohol, when they get more sun. So Morocco's hefty African wines were known as "medicine spirits" because they were often used to boost the strength of better-known domains in colder climates.

When the European Union banned blending wine from elsewhere to its production, Morocco turned to creating its own labels. The king offered land at a bargain price to foreign wine growers, and Zniber, a Moroccan, created his own empire - tax free because Morocco has frozen taxation on agriculture until 2010.

Most of the group's dozen brands are cheap wines sold inside the country. But the Celliers also heavily invested in improving quality, conducting private research since Morocco's Agriculture Ministry won't sponsor studies on a near-forbidden product. The chief oenologist, a Moroccan, has nearly free reign to try out new techniques and grape varieties in the factory-like winery packed with stainless-steel vaults.

"Our top-end domain is now comparable to a good Bordeaux," said Dehut, referring to the famous red wines from southwestern France.

The comparison doesn't end there, with Zniber masterminding the creation of local wine "appellations," like in France, and proudly displaying Morocco's first self-styled "Chateau" - in practice a cathedral-sized concrete structure built as a winery in the 1920s.

In the cellar under Chateau Roslane lie some 3,000 oak barrels to store and give tannins to the top red wines. The domain also counts a state-of-the-art tasting lab, landscaped gardens, reception halls lined with Moroccan carpets and artifacts, as well as a sampling room with a long oak table and leather chairs reminiscent of historic European mansions.

The underlying message seems clear: Morocco can take the best from Europe as well as from its own traditions.

"Many of my friends are astonished by the quality," said Dehut, popping open a bottle of the Celliers' new Champagne-styled sparkly wine, "The Pearl of the South."

Still, the homemade Champagne only sells in Morocco, meaning Muslims are most likely its largest buyers.

Morocco launches 3rd low cost Carrier

Washington. Apr 30, 09- After Jet4you and Atlas Blue, here's Air Arabia Morocco, whose first flights are scheduled for May 6th.

Morocco has its 3rd low-cost airline. Alongside Jet4you and Atlas Blue, newly born Air Arabia Morocco whose maiden flight on May 6 will be between Casablanca and London.
The company required an investment of $ 50 million: 51% owned by private Moroccan investors, with the remainder coming from institutions of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The new carrier will serve a number of destinations in Europe and North Africa. It is the result of an alliance between the Moroccan airline Regional Air and the parent company Air Arabia, based in the UAE. In addition, it has two Airbus A320 aircraft and will receive a 3rd of the same aircraft type in November 2009. The airline plans to acquire a fleet of 16 aircrafts by 2014.

Air Arabia Morocco "is not intended to compete with the RAM (Royal Air Maroc), which is solid" … "no fear for its future," said Moroccan Transport Minister Mr. Karim Ghellab.
“The Moroccan American community begs to differ with the Transportation Minister, because of the ongoing litany of complaints by U.S. based travelers about the state-controlled-airline, Royal Air Maroc.
With the new low cost carrier going to London, it would be interesting to see how travelers to morocco can combine a trip to the UK and a connection to Morocco and keep the price and the convenience factor attractive and avoid the aggravations of RAM all together” said a Moroccan American resident of Maryland.

Morocco's BMCE bank counters real estate crisis

CASABLANCA, April 23 (Reuters) - Morocco's second-largest private bank, BMCE (BMCE.CS), signed deals on Thursday with the country's largest real estate developers to try to shield the key sector from the global economic downturn.

The real estate boom was the engine of growth in the past five years.

But investors worried the impact of the global economic crisis would wither growth and affect others sectors such as construction and the stock market, where real estate companies underpinned the bourse's good performance.

Housing Minister Taoufik Hejira said real estate was hit by a "psychological crisis" caused by the global turmoil.

"The (real) estate market is healthy with strong fundamentals. There is no real crisis in the business. It is just a psychological crisis," he told Reuters on the sidelines the signing ceremony.

Under the deals with the developers, including Addoha (ADH.CS) and CDI, the real estate arm of Morocco's biggest state fund CDG, BMCE will keep credit flowing and guarantee loans for middle class buyers.
"The government would provide a 50 percent guarantee for the loans and the bank would guarantee the other 50 percent to keep the real estate on the track of growth," Hejira added.

Other banks are expected to follow BMCE to try to ward off the impact of the crisis, officials said. BMCE has a 24 percent share of the country's real estate loans.

"The measures adopted by BMCE bank target the middle class, which constitutes the backbone of the stability of our society," BMCE Chairman Othman Benjelloun told the gathering.

BMCE unveiled a financial product named Salaf Damane Assakane (housing guarantee loan) for middle class houses costing 800,000 Moroccan Dihrams ($93,730) or six times the average low-income price.

STRONG POTENTIAL

The government launched a programme to sustain real estate growth, including a scheme to eradicate slums in the main cities to help fight poverty and radical Islamists.

Eleven suicide bombers from Casablanca's slums killed themselves and 34 others in 2003, jolting the government into tackling poverty and other social problems.

Despite the government's efforts, a third of the 15 million Moroccans living in cities lack decent housing, Hejira said.

About Half of the 30 million population live in the countryside.
"Five million people among the 15 urban population need decent housing. Each year, 150,000 new couples need homes. That is to say, what potential of growth the estate sector has," he added.

Hejira dismissed worries among business people that Morocco's real estate sector could slump into crisis.

"Morocco is still far from the depth of the crisis," he said. "That does not mean that the country would not be affected. Some Moroccans are thinking about cancelling plans to to buy houses because of media talk about the crisis."

Morocco's economy is likely to grow 6.7 percent this year from 5.8 percent last year due to an expected good cerealsharvest and despite the impact of the global crisis, according to official forecasts.

Growth, excluding farming, will slow to 3.9 percent this year from 5 percent last year, according to the state High Planning Commission, underscoring the fragile basis of growth, despite government efforts to reform the economy and decouple it from weather-dependent agriculture.

Soaring real estate prices shut out Morocco's middle class

Moroccan private company manager Slimane Belhouat has been trying to buy a house for five years. Even with a monthly income of 12,000 dirhams – in a country where the average citizen earns 1,344 MAD each month – he is currently unable to obtain a loan to buy a flat in a decent and quiet area in the capital.

"You now need a budget of at least a million dirhams to buy a home with an area of 80 square metres in Rabat, which I just can't afford. I'm not going to spend three-quarters of my salary for years on end to buy my own flat."

He is not alone. Karima and her husband Othmane wanted to buy a plot of land to build a two-storey house in Temara, but as the years passed, their dream faded away. The young couple now hopes to buy just a flat with enough room for a small family.

"Land prices have skyrocketed. To buy a plot measuring 90 square metres you need at least 900,000 dirhams. That’s beyond our means, even though my wife and I both work as managers for a company. There have been unprecedented rises in prices," says a crestfallen Othmane. His wife Karima notes that the situation has driven many of their friends to buy social housing intended for those on low incomes.

There is another problem preventing many from buying their own homes: so-called "black payments" which buyers are expected to make "off the books" so that developers avoid paying taxes. Even though the practice is illegal, it is widespread. Payments can reach as much as half the price of a flat. The phenomenon has persisted despite numerous promises by the Ministry of Housing to launch a crackdown.

Since banks will only lend up to the amount stated on the official contract, the prevalence of so much money exchanged under the table has forced civil servant Samira Toumani to abandon the dream of having her own home.

"To buy a flat I needed to take out a bank loan and find the rest myself," she tells Magharebia. "In the end I gave up. Renting suits me best for the time being," she says.

The Ministry of Housing acknowledges that there is a severe shortage of housing for the middle class. According to figures from the High Commission for Planning, 2.4 million families are affected. A total of 800,000 families do not own their homes; 300,000 of these families live in inadequate housing.

The situation has arisen because the government, through ambitious programmes such as the FOGARIM housing-assistance fund, has focused its attention on low-income housing over the past few years to reduce the number of shanty towns and sub-standard dwellings. Moreover, government tax breaks granted to property developers have spurred the latter to target the state-subsidised housing sector.

The government wants to cut the housing shortage to 27% by 2012. To achieve this objective, the various market players are now seeking to implement two agreements signed in February to help middle class Moroccans acquire their own homes.

The government pledged to make 3,853 hectares of public land available for 200,000 new housing units. Fourteen hubs and urban zones will be created and 28 housing programmes will be implemented in 32 cities across 11 regions of the country. The cost: nearly 52 billion dirhams.

The government has also vowed to increase the size of the guarantee fund for the middle class. By giving private-sector workers access to this fund, the government is hoping to boost demand for property by middle class buyers. It is expected that those with a net monthly wage of 10,000 dirhams and couples with a combined income of 15,000 dirhams will be able to obtain guarantees worth up to 800,000 dirhams.

"The measure will breathe new life into a sector where the need for housing is acute," says Youssef Ibn Mansour, President of the National Federation of Property Developers.

[File] Housing Minister Ahmed Taoufiq Hejira is pushing for more construction of affordable housing.

The Ministry of Housing and various urban agencies are currently trying to allow suburbs, by way of exception, to be "urbanised" and thus permit integrated housing projects. In March, Housing Minister Ahmed Taoufiq Hejira called on all parties involved to work hard to free up land on the outskirts of cities so that homes could be built as soon as possible for middle-class families, who for years have been excluded from government housing programmes.

The creation of a new generation of housing co-operatives is another priority set by the Ministry of Housing to assist middle-class buyers. Most of these co-operatives have failed to achieve their aims due to inadequate funding, mismanagement or disputes. Last year, just 32% of them were able to secure housing, while the remainder have yet to reach the construction stage.

The Ministry wants these groups to have direct access to land at cost. The aim is to make property affordable in order to stop intermediaries from pushing prices upwards. The Ministry is even thinking of subsidising technical and architectural studies to make things easier for co-operatives.

"Developers are continuing to build homes that do not meet the expectations of the middle classes in terms of quality or price," says economics professor Abderrahmane Yahyaoui. He believes that the government's new housing strategy will encourage property developers to focus on middle-class homebuyers: "This segment has the biggest pool of customers," he explains.

Many middle-class Moroccans are anxiously waiting for the government's new strategy to take effect. Still, given the current economic climate, some potential homebuyers are reluctant to act. Mohammed Maaroufi, a higher-education teacher, says that although banks are currently offering advantageous terms, market prices could fall due to the international economic crisis just starting to hit Morocco.

"I want to buy, but I'm going to wait for prices to readjust," he says. "At the moment, they don't reflect the true values of properties."