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On July 10, the WTO announced that it had received a complaint from Tunisia, which accuses its neighbor of the anti-dumping measures on the school books provisionally adopted by Rabat last May.
In June 2017, Tunisian and Moroccan Prime Ministers Youssef Chahed and Moroccan Saadeddine El Othmani pledged to double their trade by 2020 to reach $ 500 million by that date.
a year later, these beautiful commercial promises seem far away: on July 10, the World Trade Organization (WTO) announced that it had received a complaint from Tunisia, which imputes to its neighbor anti-dumping measures on school books provisionally adopted by Rabat last May
Morocco accuses its neighbor of flooding the Moroccan market, jeopardizing its own domestic production. "Morocco has an installed capacity of 26,000 tons, which could largely be enough to supply the local market, which is of the order of 21,000 tons," says Jalil Benddane, General Manager of Mapaf (22 million tons). euros in turnover, of which 40% for the production of notebooks) and president of the Association des industriels marocains. However, with 7,000 tons, Tunisian manufacturers now account for one third of this market – and 87% of total imports of notebooks in Morocco.
"No dumping" ensures Tunisia
If these figures are confirmed on the Tunisian side , the convergence of points of view ends there. "Tunisians sell their production at very low prices, which we have to align ourselves with, so that we sell at a loss," says Jalil Benddane, who explains that nine to ten Moroccan companies exclusively focused on the production of notebooks have been closed in recent years.
"False", replies Utica, the main employers' organization in Tunisia, which supports the two main players in the sector, Sotefi and Sitpec, against which Morocco has been applying since May 11 last provisional anti-dumping measures of 51.06% for the first and 33.77% for the second.
They do not fade since that date. Especially since this decision caught them by surprise: a few days before this measure, Rabat had announced to extend its anti-dumping investigation by six months and invited both parties to a public hearing. "It seemed positive to us, we thought we managed to convince them of the absence of dumping on our part. The Moroccan authorities had even asked us the day after the hearing to send additional documents, "explains to Jeune Afrique Moez Loukil, CEO of Siptec, who says he was" very astonished "to learn the immediate application of provisional taxes
Two months of consultations
"Tunisia has decided to file a complaint with the WTO only as a last resort, when all our attempts at dialogue have been rejected by the United States. Moroccan authorities. We hope, however, that we will not go as far as litigation. It would be a shame to get there between two brother countries, "Moez Loukil said. Following the referral to Tunisia, the international organization will indeed set up a consultation procedure lasting two months, the jurisdictional process should only be triggered if the two parties can not find a satisfactory solution. deadline.
"If the provisional measures adopted by Morocco are not definitively validated, the five to six companies survivors of the sector will all be forced to close one after the other," warned on his side Jalil Benddane, who displays his trust in his ministry of guardianship
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