King of Morocco Mohamed VI to arrive in Moscow

King of Morocco Mohamed VI arrives in Moscow on Monday evening.

Urgent problems of bilateral cooperation are to be discussed during the visit, in particular, current Russian-Moroccan relations in the political, economic trade and humanitarian spheres.

The exchange of opinions is expected to be made on the topical international problems. Special attention will be paid to the situation in the Middle East and around Iraq.

In recent years, Russian-Moroccan ties developed in the positive direction. Late in January Moroccan foreign minister Mohamed Benaissa visited Russia, and early in April Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov visited Rabat.

Morocco is a leading Russian trade partner in Africa. In 2001, a record-high bilateral trade turnover worth 380 million dollars was achieved, with the Russian exports to Morocco reaching 319 million dollars. Since 1998, Russia has been ranked the second (after the EU) among the consumers of the Moroccan agricultural produce (citrus fruits and fresh tomatoes make up 98 percent of Russian imports from Morocco).

Bilateral cooperation is the best in power engineering and mining industry. Five joint ventures with the Russian participation operate in Morocco, which are specialising in building ports, gypsum production and processing, drilling into water, and selling agricultural produce. Russia and Morocco have also cooperated in geology, the production of minerals, irrigation, water supply, atomic power engineering as well space exploration (in December 2001 a Moroccan satellite was launched from the Baikonur space port).

Morocco is a constitutional monarchy. The King of the country, Mohamed VI, came to the throne on July 30th, 1999, after the death of his father Hasan II.

The Moroccan monarch is one of the youngest kings of the world - he will be 39 this year.