COUNTRY FOCUS : MOROCCO
Competitive French speaking call centres , technology parks , e-government initiatives , fast growing mobile Internet , dominate the country ’ s ITscape dynamics .
BPO , techno-parks , e-govern driving Moroccan ICT
Panoramic view of Casablanca skyline , Morocco
Morocco is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwestern Africa . It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west , and has land borders with Algeria to the east , and the disputed territory of Western Sahara to the south .
The Moroccan government has been implementing reforms to improve the quality of education and make research more responsive to socio-economic needs . Economic growth , coupled with the liberalisation of the sector in the 1990s , has led to the expansion of Morocco ’ s ICT sector , which is also underpinned by high penetration levels and policies conducive to the development of related services and their incorporation into everyday business activities .
The mobile telecoms segment is the most dynamic in the industry , with mobile data services leading the way . Mobile penetration in Morocco reached approximately 131 % in September 2018 , up from around 128 % two years earlier , according to figures from the National Telecommunications Regulatory Agency . Over the same period Internet access reached approximately
68 % penetration in Morocco , with mobile Internet dominating the majority of subscriptions .
ICT has also become an important contributor to the economy , with the African Development Bank estimating in 2016 that communications , along with transport , accounted for some 7 % of GDP . Efforts have continued with the launch of the Digital Morocco Plan 2020 in 2016 , which aims to further incorporate IT into the public sector , improve Internet access , transform the Morocco into a regional centre for IT and encourage IT entrepreneurship .
As part of the plan , the government has targeted moving 50 % of all administrative processes online and connecting 20 % of the country ’ s SMEs to the Internet . Moroccan authorities also implemented the National Broadband Strategy to connect 65 % of Moroccans and 100 % of public buildings to broadband Internet by 2020 in line with the Digital Morocco Plan 2020 .
Digital Morocco
Under the digital strategy , the government launched the Agency for Digital Development in September
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