Last Wednesday China flexed some of its muscles by showcasing the wealthiest company in the world, a $ 1 trillion oil company far exceeding the former world oil giant Exxon-Mobile, China had enough of hiding its might, it had to show some of its capacities, and it will be the largest consumer of energy in the world by 2010, dethroning the US which was comfortably sitting on the top ranking of energy consumption for decades.
This shift of economical power is inevitable, China is too big of an elephant to ignore or hide. They do business with virtually the entire world, it is true that China without the American market will struggle greatly in sustaining its growth but this country knows well how to diversify its clients to avoid putting all its eggs in one basket. In this spirit, China looked for years into infiltrating smaller markets with potential of growth in the upcoming years; Morocco was one of these markets.
The new trade relations with Morocco and the role that Morocco plays in the merging economies were well thought and designed by the Chinese government to compete with the west for the small but stable economies of many countries that are similar to Morocco ,
Morocco benefited from such relation in terms of cheaper technology and easy access, but in long run Morocco will not benefit much of such overture, China is not an equal partner, it is too overwhelming for Morocco to balance its trade with. Even the giant economy of the World, the US, has been struggling for two decades to get close to a trade balance with China. We are talking a bout a country and an economy that knows only selling at all cost, selling cheap, selling fast and destroying local industries.
This is more serious that we can imagine, imagine when our BALGHA is made in China and sold for 20DH with same if not better quality than the one made in Morocco. This is just an example of what could happen to our economy, the Chinese are not going to open factories and workshops in Morocco, they are interested in purchasing big warehouses to store and distribute their goods contrary to what the multinational companies did previously. Just a few years ago Morocco was assembling, cars TV sets and even plane parts, now all the above will be delivered ready to use with prices that defy the logic.
I am all for exploring our horizons for cheaper and easy to sue technology and every day products but a robust trade policy with tariffs and a watchful eye on the Chinese goods are mandatory because they may one day cause more harm than good to the average Moroccan…for now lets enjoy this new culture that came to us and keep an eye on it, the Chinese proverb says: “don’t give me a fish, instead teach me how to fish. We should use it too.
Source: maroc post
