Morocco, against imported textile commodities from Turkey has taken on 36 per cent tax increase on these marketed products. The Moroccan Officials, which aims to support the domestic textile industry, made a new decision in July. With the new legislation stated in the Financial Law, the Customs and Indirect Taxes Administration of the Moroccan Ministry of Economy announced the new customs tax rate as 36 percent. Morocco that has made the decision to add on the taxes on imported goods especially due to its role on encouraging local production during the Covid-19 outbreak, hopes to limit the imports of textile products that would compete strongly with domestic products timely with this protective measure.
$ 2 Billion Gap in Trade Balance
Morocco and Turkey signed a Free Trade Agreement in 2004, as it is known. The agreement came into effect two years later in 2006. Since then, the balance of trade between Turkey and Morocco has suffered from a discrete loss in the statement of the Industry Minister Moulay Hafid Elalamy who also mentioned about $ 2 billion worth of loss a year for Turkey as a result of the trade agreement with Morocco. Elalamy further mentioned about nearly 44.000 jobs disappeared in Morocco within 2017 alone because of Turkish textile industry. As it is known, at the beginning of 2020, Rabat and Ankara give in way negotiations to review the Free Trade Agreement. However, negotiations were suspended due to the Covid-19 outbreak. It seems that the new tax rate will seriously affect Turkish ready-to-wear brands such as LC Waikiki, Koton and DeFacto, which are controlling $ 1 billion worth of textile products market.
