By DANA SMITH

Tribune Staff Reporter

dsmith@tribunemedia.net

VISA-free travel to Morocco and scholarships for Bahamian students to be educated at Moroccan technical and vocational schools were discussed last week during Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell’s trip to the north African country.

The initiatives were considered as part of a potential Technical Corporations Agreement, which could also aid the Bahamas in its shift to heritage tourism and contribute to the country’s agriculture industry.

Speaking yesterday morning at the Foreign Affairs Ministry for a press briefing on his trip, Mr Mitchell said the possible agreement was designed during “bilateral discussions” with Morocco’s own Foreign Affairs Minister.

 “Amongst the subjects we discussed included the possibility of offering scholarships to students from the Bahamas,” he said.

“At the moment there are scholarships offered to their technical and vocational institutes to Caribbean students from Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, and Dominica.

“What happens is you get the scholarship, you spend a year learning French, and then you enter into the school for technical and vocational institute. We had an opportunity to look at their facilities.”

There were also discussions on tourism and “possible exchanges to tourism,” he added.

“Morocco has something like 10 million tourists a year. At the moment, it is a tourism that is based around culture and history or what they call heritage tourism,” he said.

“They were interested in our success as a sun, sand, and sea destination because there is a sea-coast there and they are trying to develop that. So they wanted to come to the Bahamas and see what we do here in terms of our development of a destination as sun, sand, and sea.

“And, of course, Bahamas tourism is interested in developing more of a heritage and history type tourism. So it looks like an even and good exchange. We agreed that we would have further discussions on that point, as well.”

Easier travel to Morocco by Bahamians through waving the visa-requirement was also considered.

“We did explore the issue of visa-free travel to Morocco for Bahamians,” he said. “So part of the Technical Corporations Agreement and outreach that we will be advancing, will be the waving of visa’s for Bahamians into Morocco which would make it possible for those Bahamians who want to go there, not to have the visa issue to deal with.”

As well the tourism industry, improvements in agriculture and fisheries was another topic.

“We also discussed the issue of cooperation in agriculture,” Mr Mitchell said.

“The OCP Group is a corporation in Morocco that is the largest exporter of phosphates – the main ingratiate in fertilizer. They have already as part of their Technical Cooperation, provided phosphates for Grenada and for Antigua and Barbuda, so it is possible for them, once they have their scientists come over and look at our needs, for them to contribute phosphates to the Bahamas, as well... We also went and visited their fisheries ministry and talked about cooperation in the development of fisheries.”

Appointing a non-resident Ambassador was another subject, Mr Mitchell said, adding that officials from the Moroccan Foreign Affairs Ministry will visit the Bahamas in January to further discuss the possible collaboration.