Five billion dirhams is the staggering amount that IMS has announced that it wants to invest in Morocco to set up new hospital units. Also at stake is the ongoing rapprochement of relations with Israel, from which the group originated.
Present for more than 20 years in Africa where it has built and manages half a dozen hospitals in the west of the continent as well as in Equatorial Guinea, the Israeli group International medical services (IMS) will therefore also set up in Morocco. On June 30, 2022, the Ministry of Health announced on its website that it had signed a memorandum with him. Amount at stake: no less than five billion dirhams (MMDH), which will be used concretely to set up several hospital units in the regions of Dakhla-Oued Ed Dahab, Fez-Meknes, Drâa-Tafilalet, Oriental and Marrakech-Safi.
According to the department concerned, this memorandum follows the guidelines given by King Mohammed VI in favor of the establishment of a model of social development based on the principles of equality, equity and solidarity, but it is no doubt necessary also see there the beginning of the realization of the call launched in his speech from the Throne of July 29, 2019 by the Sovereign so that “certain sectors and liberal professions”, including those of health, “open [ent] to global expertise and skills, to the private sector, national and foreign”.
He then indicated that “many international institutions and companies have expressed the wish to invest and settle in Morocco”, which the investment announced by IMS also confirms. In addition, the Minister of Health, Khalid Aït Taleb, for his part, on several occasions confided that he generally viewed the possibilities of a public-private partnership with a very good eye and personally seemed to see in it the appropriate solution for financing the national health system due to the limited resources available to the State. Moreover, several private groups currently have clinics in Morocco, such as Aktidal, KMR Holding or the French Valyans, which means that IMS is not strictly speaking the first foreign entity to invest in the sector.
Public-private partnership
Finally, the nationality of IMS is obviously to be noted, given that the announcement of its investment does not fail to fall within the framework of the restoration of Moroccan-Israeli relations begun in December 2020 under the aegis of the United States and that it therefore also has an eminently political dimension and not only an economic one, especially since the region of Dakhla-Oued Ed Dahab, in the heart of the Moroccan Sahara, is specifically concerned.
Let us recall, in this last respect, that during the visit she has just made on June 21, 2022, the Israeli Minister of the Interior, Ayelet Shaked, had provided, on behalf of her country, a firm support for the sovereignty of Morocco on the region, which was a first and is probably also to be considered as a green light, in this case, to Israeli businessmen and women.
