Identifying Morocco’s Perceived Attractiveness to SMEs Managers in Germany

Abstract

In the age globalization, the concept of attractiveness is of crucial importance to territories that are involved in a fierce competition over attracting geographically mobile investments. Attractiveness is a new imperative for creating jobs, increasing investment in industry and services, accessing the global market, and developing new technologies. Attracting potential investors is therefore a major objective for all territories, and more specifically developing countries. The attractiveness of territories is based on a number of location advantages that are of fundamental importance, as companies only select the sites that enable them to reinforce their competitiveness. In this context, promoting and welcoming foreign investments is a multidimensional challenge in which the identification of perceived attractiveness to small and medium-sized enterprises occupies a prominent place. In this work, we discuss and explore the determinants on which foreign companies base their choice to locate in Morocco, using an analytico-descriptive research methodology as well as an exploratory study including managers and entrepreneurs from Germany. The objective of this study is to verify the attractiveness of Morocco as an economic destination especially in the strategic sectors (i.e. renewable energies, tourism, offshoring, agriculture and fishing, etc.).