Yacout Info: Where did you work previously?]b
David Flint: I worked in the Economic department of the Foreign Office for two years and then two years seconded to the City of London Corporation working for the Lord Mayor of the City of London. Alderman Ian Luder was here in Morocco in January. The City of London has been in existence for a long time. It has two roles: it is at one level a local authority within the Square Mile of the City of London it is actually responsible for cleaning the streets and making sure the street lights work, all the things a local authority is responsible for. For historical reasons it has another role of promoting the UK based financial services industry. It works closely with International Financial Services ( IFSL) London which is a membership organisation that looks after its members' interests and the Mayor's office which looks after the wider financial industry’s interests, works closely with IFSL.

Q: So you bring to your current post in Casablanca a good knowledge of the financial services industry in the UK?
A: I think it was one of the selling points for me when I applied for the post in Casablanca. Morocco has its ambition to become a regional financial centre which I think has been very well thought through. They have not made the mistake that some others have of being too ambitious. They have recognised where their strengths lie and are looking to build on those.. The fundamentals of the Casablanca Stock Exchange are firm and there is no reason why it will not bounce back to a strong performance although one cannot tell when that will be. The historical projections are good and there will be peaks and troughs along the way.

Q: Do you think that Morocco is important for British investors?
A: Very much so the fact is there are many synergies, the Casablanca financial centre is not a competitor to London and needs time to develop. It makes sense for the UK to sell its expertise to Morocco. Morocco can use this expertise to build on and it is an ideal partnership, a win win situation. I have heard a figure of 400 Moroccans working in the City of London quoted and I met a number of them, I can't vouch for the exact number of Moroccans working in the City. At least a third of the people working in the City are not UK nationals. Some research showed that every day in the City people are speaking over 340 languages. The City is a very international and cosmopolitan place.

Q: One of those Moroccans working in the City was Mr Yassir Zenagui who is now the Minister of Tourism who may now be looking for British investors in the Plan Azur for Tourism. Do you think the UK can answer that need?
A: One of London's selling points is that it is one of the most international financial centres in the world. New York comes ahead of it in some ways because of the size of the American market. London's expertise, despite the current malaise, has been in raising funds not just in the UK but it has the links, knowledge and will to put together international financing and has an expertise second to none. I have no doubt that if they are looking to raise funds for the Plan Azur, London is a very good starting place for doing so.
In terms of the British Consulate and trade promotion we would encourage them to take this route.
London does have the expertise to help.

Q: What are your impressions of Morocco?
A: I am very much enjoying it, I arrived at the end of July and I haven't seen as much of the country as I would like to. This is my first visit to Marrakech and there are other centres that I want to visit. I was looking forward to it before I came and I haven't been disappointed.

Q: Sadly Dewhirst closed its plant in Tangier last week, how do you see the textile sector now?
A: It has been affected by globalisation and the growth of China in particular and that is a fact of the world economy .I think what is quite interesting is that I do detect some interest in moving production back to Morocco purely because of the proximity to the UK. Someone said to me that you had goods shipped from Morocco and on the shelves in two days, which you can't do from China. The nature of the relationship between Morocco and UK has seen some companies fall by the wayside and others prosper and some companies change their strategies. It will be a long time before Morocco can compete with China in mass production but there are high value and important areas where Morocco can compete, like fast fashion in the European market.

Q: Renewable Energy and solar and wind power feature in the Ministry of Energy's plans, can UK expertise contribute to this?
A: It has great potential because there are synergies between the industry developments in the two countries. The UK isn't a leader in solar energy because we don't have the sunshine but wind power is an area where the UK does have expertise. UK has some excellent technological solutions which I am sure we can share this with Moroccan companies. Morocco is looking to meet its own carbon reduction quotas and also looking to sell its carbon reduction targets to Europe as well. There are excellent opportunities there. The mechanics of putting the right partners together is surprisingly difficult.

Q: Is oil and gas exploration in Morocco still a fruitful area for UK companies?
A: It will be in the long term. The oil and gas industry recently has been on such a rollercoaster that inevitably investment decisions have been on the conservative side. Looking at the energy map one sees oil and gas in other Maghreb countries and common sense indicates that there should be reserves in Morocco as well. The oil price is rising again and oil shale is back on the agenda again. Jordan has just begun the first commercial exportation of oil shale and Morocco has oil shale deposits as well and that is another important area of potential development. It may be in one of five years. There are at least 5 or 6 British oil explorations with contracts in Morocco.

Q: Are there other UK industries and sources of expertise which can work in Morocco?
A: I think it is possible that some British manufacturing units could move to Morocco. It needs to be a more long term strategy. British companies do not have long term historical links to Morocco and don't have as much knowledge of Moroccan companies as their French or Spanish counter parts. UK companies are more knowledgeable about countries like India and this is where industrial relocation has tended to occur.

It is a very exciting time to be doing my job because Morocco realises that it needs to look beyond its traditional partners and British companies are perhaps realising that they have put too many eggs into the China and India basket over recent years.

So I think that the answer is that long term, British companies will become more involved in Morocco but we need to do a bit of spade work first. We need to get more British companies to trade here. Companies like Unilever are here and manufacturing their products and trading with Morocco and there is more room for investing in the country. I see trade leading to investment. In terms of British expertise I would hesitate to point to specific areas because expertise is now be actively sold worldwide by Britain, more than finished products. One of the great things about British expertise is that it is not just linked to British goods anymore. British consultants do not automatically recommend British goods. If I were to try to identify areas for British Moroccan trade and cooperation I think finance across the board is clearly one, it could include banking, these days the City of London promotes UK based banks like BNP Parisbas, Societe Generale and many others have big operations in London. Deutsche Bank actually has more people in London than in Frankfurt.

Traditional British banks like HSBC and Barclays may not have branches here but they do business here in Morocco. It is of course much wider than just banking, construction and infrastructure, consulting engineering, IT and there are some young British IT companies who have been looking at Morocco. Britain has a very broad based economy and I would hesitate to rule any industry area out of possibly trading with Morocco.

Q: Do you think the British need to work on the use of foreign languages like French, Spanish and Arabic in the marketplace.
A: I think the short answer is yes! There are two parts to this question, one has recognised limitations in the use of foreign languages in the UK itself , however we sometimes we end up importing the skills, London for instance has ended up being the fifth largest city in the world for French nationals! There is undoubtedly a need for improved language skills in the UK. My old department in the Foreign Office used to run a hugely successful Arabic language training school in the Lebanon which sadly had to close in the mid seventies due to the Lebanese civil war. It used to teach businessmen as well as diplomats, so there are centres for Arabic language skills. The other side to this is that I have been surprised by the amount of English spoken in Morocco and there is great interest in learning English. However any UK company which is serious about doing international business has to have access to language skills. Whether they have in-house training facilities or they buy them in from outside.

Q: You have a UK education and training mission coming to Morocco in April, how important is that?
A: This is a very important area of UK excellence. I found in my background in financial services that UK qualifications are very widely recognised worldwide. UK institutions are used to working with local institutions you can provide these qualifications locally and they are also used to operating in various languages. Many of these qualifications are available in French and in Arabic. It is something that Alderman Ian Luder discussed when he was here in January. I am very keen on developing this and we are hoping that a strong Middle East Association education and training mission will come to Morocco in April and I think it is a huge chance to start putting some of those connections together.