The Impact of CGEM's patronage as an actor of Moroccan economic diplomacy on investment in Africa: an empirical analysis

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the model of Morocco's economic diplomacy towards African countries to provide possible recommendations for future research in the field of Moroccan economic diplomacy that has emerged with globalization and the increasing demand for openness to trade and investment. The literature review indicates a general lack of research at the national level on this topic from an empirical point of view. To this end, in a first step, we focus in this article on providing the theoretical literature review of economic diplomacy. Secondly, the role of the General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises (CGEM) in strengthening relations between Morocco and Africa. The methodology used in this paper is mainly based on the gravity model of international trade to analyze Moroccan economic diplomacy and its effectiveness in terms of the volume of exports of goods to African countries, as well as the econometric techniques of one-dimensional panel data and time, which allows the possibility of conducting a study at repeated intervals on a group of individuals. In our research, 43 African countries are involved. The results of this gravity model of international trade confirm a positive relationship between Morocco's GDP, distance and trade agreements between CGEM and African countries, which supports the hypothesis that increasing the amount of trade agreements between CGEM and African countries positively affects the volume of bilateral trade and has a beneficial influence on foreign investment.

JEL Classification : F02, F12, F14, F23

Paper type: Empirical research