The commission, in charge of statistics, said in a statement that food prices increased 1% and non-food prices 0.9%.

Concerning December inflation, it fell 0.5% relative to the previous month, said the same source.

Morocco's exports to the European Union (EU) increased by an average annual rate of 6% between 2000 and 2008, that is
rising from MAD 59.6 billion to MAD 92.2 billion.

Speaking at the parliament on Tuesday, Morocco's Foreign Trade Minister, Abdellatif Maazouz, said that the Kingdom's
imports from the EU increased 11% in the same period, from MAD 72.4 billion in 2000 to MAD 168.8 billion in 2008.

Talking about the free trade agreements that Morocco has signed, Maazouz stressed that they have significantly boosted
foreign direct investments (FDI).

He explained that the EU is Morocco's main source of FDI, 80% of them between 2000 and 2008, mostly from France and
Spain (63%).

Morocco signed on Tuesday in Geneva a cooperation agreement with the international Trade Center (ITC) for the
implementation in Morocco of a program that aims at enhancing Arab capacity for trade (ENACT).

Financed by the Canadian intergovernmental Agency for International Development, ENACT is a regional program of
technical assistance for reinforcing the trade policy-making function, trade promotion and enterprise competitiveness in
five Arab countries.

Implemented by the ICT, it aims at promoting additional trade, both from the region outward and between the countries
concerned: Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia.

ENACT, whose overall budget stands at 8,439,000 dollars, 1.6 dollars of which are earmarked for Morocco, will support
the country's sectoral development programs and the companies involved in the export sector. 

Harmonizing the measures for the integration of these countries in the trade system and enabling them to exchange
experiences in the development of foreign trade are also among the objectives of the program. 

“Through developing regional trade with complementary strategic partnerships, these countries can have a better
position in international markets,” said Patricia Francis, the director of the ITC, who singed the agreement with
Morocco's Foreign Trade Minister Abdellatif Maazouz. 

The ITC, a joint agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations, was created to help developing and
transition countries achieve sustainable human development through exports.

It provides five complementary business services: business and trade policy, export strategy, strengthening trade
support institutions, trade intelligence and exporter competitiveness.

-The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) table shows a country's ranking and score, the number of surveys used to
determine the score, and the confidence range of the scoring.

-The rank shows how one country compares to others included in the index. The CPI score indicates the perceived level of
public-sector corruption in a country/territory.

-The CPI is based on 13 independent surveys. However, not all surveys include all countries. The surveys used column
indicates how many surveys were relied upon to determine the score for that country.

-The confidence range indicates the reliability of the CPI scores and tells us that allowing for a margin of error, we
can be 90% confident that the true score for this country lies within this range.

Trade between the member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) reached USD 275 billion in 2008,
said on Tuesday in Cairo the Director General of the OIC, Allal Rachdi.

“Trade between Islamic countries represented 16.6% of their overall trade in 2008, against 10% in 2000,” Rachdi
explained at the 13th forum of Muslim businessmen. 

Concerning Morocco, the OIC official told MAP news agency that the country's trade with these states represented 12% of
its overall commercial transactions.

Highlighting the Moroccan economic potential, Rachdi underlined that his organization is taking a number of measures to
boost trade between its member states.

Morocco has called on china to open its market to Moroccan products, as Morocco's share in the bilateral trade does not
exceed 7%. 

During a meeting on “economy and commerce between Morocco and china”, Morocco's Minister of Foreign Trade Abdellatif
Maazouz said that Sino-Moroccan trade registered during the last threes an average annual growth of 72%, reaching USD
2.5 billion in 2008.

However, “Morocco's share (7%) remains below the potentials of the Moroccan economy, mainly on the Chinese market,”
underlined the Moroccan Minister. 

He added that “this figure pushes us to reinforce the two countries' commercial relations on the basis of mutual
advantages.”

Morocco's overall economic freedom score is still below the world average, as its economy scored 57.7, ranking 101st
freest in the 2009 Index among 179 countries.

This year's score, provided by the Heritage Foundation, has slightly improved compared to last year, as Morocco got 2.1
points higher than last year's, reflecting small increases in six of the 10 economic freedoms. 

Morocco also ranked 12th out of 17 countries in the Middle East and North Africa region, explained the foundation, which
is a think tank whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free
enterprise.

The think thank has found that “Morocco's economy benefits from relatively high levels of business freedom, monetary
freedom, and investment freedom.” 

It also explained, in a press release published on its website, that foreign and domestic investments receive equal
treatment, and that the small but growing financial sector is fairly well developed for the region. 

The foundation thus hailed the government's reform efforts in recent years, especially in terms of simplifying the tax
regime and improving the transparency of fiscal management.

The institution stressed, however, that although privatization has been steady for about a decade, “the state
maintains at least partial ownership across a broad spectrum of sectors.”

It also added that Morocco scores less well in labor freedom, property rights, and freedom from corruption, while for it
the judiciary is “inefficient” and subject to corruption.

Morocco thus scores 76.2 in business freedom, 68.0 in trade freedom, 65.1 in fiscal freedom, 80.5 in monetary freedom,
60.0 in investment freedom and 50.0 in terms of financial freedom. 

Concerning government size, Morocco got 76.5, while it received 35.0 in property rights, 35.0 in freedom from corruption
and 30.8 in labor freedom.

Morocco's Monetary Policy Council, belonging to the Central bank, has further lowered commercial banks' reserve rate
from 10% to 8%.

The central bank explained, in a statement, that this move was taken to ease the liquidity crisis, adding that it may
further lower it later. It had earlier cut it from 12 to 10.

During its meeting on Thursday, the Council also decided to keep the benchmark interest rate at 3.25%, as a result of
slowing inflation.

The Year-on-year June-July inflation stood at about 1% before falling to zero percent in August, as some fresh produce
prices rose, Bank Al Maghreb said in the statement made after the bi-annual meeting of its council.

Morocco has allocated MAD 300 million for a marketing campaign to promote the country's ailing tourism sector.

This campaign will mainly focus on the city of Marrakech, said the strategic follow-up committee in its fourth meeting.
The Committee was established to follow up the developments of the sector in the light of the current international
crisis. 

The kingdom's tourist sector has suffered from the international financial crisis, which pushed the government to put
off the completion deadline of its tourist projects part of ‘2010 Vision' to 2016.

The 2010 Vision aims at developing six coastal resorts, promoting the country's accommodation capacity and attracting up
to 10 million visitors by the year 2010.

Earlier this year, Morocco had launched a new strategy for the year 2009. Dubbed “Cap 2009”, the MAD 550-million
plan is a bunch of concrete and tactical measures designed to alleviate the impact of the financial crisis on this vital
sector.

Information and communication technology (ICT) has become an integral part of Moroccan companies, revealed a survey
conducted recently by the country's telecoms regulatory body (ANRT).
The ANRT found that companies' investment share in the ICT reached 9% in 2008. Naturally, the technological sector
invests the lion's share (30%), followed by the service/transport sector (8%). 

Thus, the survey, conducted on April 3-9, has shown that 91% of the surveyed companies (500) use the internet, most of
them prefer the ADSL connection, with a slight rise of 3G (13% of companies).

However, internet use remains limited to a certain category of workers. In the industrial sector, about three quarters
of internet users are executives.

In the technological sector, on the other hand, there is no difference between executives and non-executive in terms of
internet access, which is natural given the domain in which they are working. 

Concerning e-commerce, companies are still reluctant in this respect, both in terms of online sales and purchases, as a
result the low use rate and the lack of interest observed. 

For 38% of respondents, clients are not ready to buy online, while 37% of them declared that their products are not
adapted to such commerce. Many of them cited payment insecurity as the main hurdle facing online commerce. 

Electronic mailing and the search for information remain the main internet use for most of the companies (95%). Getting
information from public organisations is also predominant (78%).

All in all, Moroccan companies are increasingly availing themselves of information and communication technology. In
2008, 16% among them have their websites, most of which are commercial.