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Morocco's main sources of hard currency, including foreign investment, tourism and remittances from its workers abroad, overwhelmingly come from Europe. On Dec. 20, the government reduced growth projections for 2012 by half a percentage point in response to Europe's crisis. "The world is entering a period of crisis, the next four or five years are not going to be years of prosperity," warned Akesbi, who teaches at the Hassan II Institute for Agronomy in the capital Rabat. For him the Morocco Mall is part of a bet Morocco is making that it can become a kind of Dubai for the western Mediterranean, attracting consumers from across Africa and Europe to make up for weak local demand. "It is a bit of a fragile model," he said. "The success depends less on durable local demand than betting on foreign demand." The mall's developers point to Morocco's consistent growth of between 4 and 5 percent for the past few years as a sign that the economy can support this kind of luxury shopping. Those growth figures, however, are not producing jobs, and unemployment overall is at least 8 percent, while for those under 34 it is a staggering 30 percent. Pro-democracy demonstrations that rose up in Morocco earlier this year have faded away, but there are still regular protests by the millions of unemployed university graduates across the country, frustrated at their prospects. Investment has not been in sectors like industry that produce a lot of jobs, rather in retail, services and infrastructure that have not been creating the employment the nation needs, said Akesbi. And the economy is still at the whim of the annual agricultural harvest. Part of the reason for the country's steady growth recently has been good weather. "Here we are in 2011 and the economy is still largely determined by the sky," said Akesbi. Even though only 25 percent of the economy relies on agriculture, it employs 40 percent of the work force and a bad harvest can hurt other sectors. The government budget is also dangerously overstretched, after it increased food subsidies and raise government salaries in a bid to stave off the anti-government unrest sweeping the Arab world. The Morocco Mall project was conceived in the headier days of the mid-2000s when it was decided that what the country needed was more shopping centers. While Europe falters, the wealthy oil states of the Gulf are playing a role in building a more consumerist Morocco. Half the funding for Morocco Mall comes from the Saudi Al-Jedaie Group which has built malls across Saudi Arabia and two new initiatives looks set to shower Morocco with Gulf money.
[Associated
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