July 2000	Update: Morocco

Led by a strong rise in the number of cultural sites, private initiatives continued to more noticeable than publicly sponsored sites. The SEPTI listed 722 national sites at the end of March, a eleven percent increase over the end of the first quarter.

The sharp increase in the number of reported hospital and museum sites is due to a new classification scheme of the Marweb directory, which apparently corrected the small number of sites reported in the first quarter.

Three recent trends should contribute significantly to the growth of Moroccan sites in the immediate future :

1. Concerning the Internet, the price of telephone communications has dropped steadily over the last year. ISP have multiplied their offers following the introduction of Wanadoo (by the bias of Maroc Connect) and the offer of PC/Internet subscription packages (Maroc Connect, Maroc Télécom). This period has also been marked by the purchase of the Menara search engine (USD 400 000) by MarocTelecom (80%) and the introduction of Moroccan portals (orientation.com, planetarabia, news.central, imorocco). The number of Internet users (70 000) is growing slowly but regularly.
2. American multinationals, notably Orientation.com and Planetarabia have set up subsidiaries to develop the Moroccan Internet. Orientation.com, for example, is specialized in the creation of regional portal sites. A link dedicated to Morocco in French will be integrated into the site www.orientation.com (20 countries covered, 1 million visitors each day).
3. France Telecom continued its develop in Morocco using its subsidiary "Maroc Connect". The French group channels its Wanadoo services through this subsidiary, and effectively commercialised its Internet package on February 28th. Current objectives target 100 000 subscriptions before the end of the year.