SUCCESS STORIES OF THE ORIENTAL REGION: ABDELLAH SIDALI

Studies in Germany, business start-up in Morocco

Abdellah Sidali is from Nador and migrated to Germany at the age of 22 to work and pursue his studies. After his return to his hometown, he successfully started various businesses. Today, more than 150 people work for him in his tractor shop, in a factory for animal food, in a 3-star hotel, and in hunting tourism as well as in the cultivation of fruits and vegetables in greenhouses.

Short CV

Abdellah Sidali migrated to Germany in 1960 at the age of 22. He learnt German, attended an evening school, worked for Siemens in Frankfurt and completed a correspondence course at the Technical College of Darmstadt. In Frankfurt he met his future spouse, whom he married in 1962. In 1965 he returned to Morocco due to family reasons. Since then, Mr. Sidali has started various successful businesses in Nador, thereby contributing to the economical growth of his hometown.

Activities and creation of businesses

• In 1965, the year of his return to Germany, Mr. Sidali purchased a pharmacy in Nador. Today it belongs to one of his sons.
• In 1969 he started business as representative of the car company Fiat in Nador.
• In the beginning of the 1970s, Mr. Sidali recognized the potential for agriculture that emerged in the region due to the construction if the Mohammed V dam. In 1971 he started selling Massey Ferguson tractors. At the same time, he detected the cultivation of fruits and vegetables in greenhouses as a valuable source of income .
• When Mr. Sidali noticed that his tractors only sold well during rain periods, he decided to start a business whose products would also sell well during the rest of the year. Subsequently, his factory for animal food came into existence in 1978. Today the factory, located in the industrial zone of Selouane, close to Nador, is working with machines that meet modern production standards.
• Since 1992 Mr Sidali owns the Hotel Ryad, a three star hotel that is among the best hotels of the city. The idea for this business arose when Mr Sidali wanted to accommodate visitors from Germany in a hotel and found that none of the existing hotels met his expectations.
• For a couple of years, Mr. Sidali has been organizing hunting tourism in the region (partridge and boar hunt). Of course, his clients are accommodated in his own hotel, Hotel Ryad.

Abdellah Sidali’s experiences with business creation in Morocco

When Mr. Sidali began doing business in Morocco after his return from Germany, he faced several obstacles. However, he attributes his success to his perseverance and the fact that he never gave up – a mentality that was shaped in part during the years he spent in Germany.

• In Morocco Mr. Sidali was confronted with a lot of bureaucracy. In the first years he often had to travel to Rabat for minor authorizations. This, however, is something that has changed over time; nowadays many formalities can be dealt with locally. For instance, the "guichet unique" has been introduced recently, a contact point where all formalities for investments and business creation can be dealt with in one single location.* Unfortunately it does not yet always function as smoothly as it should, but dealing with administrative formalities has become a lot easier over the past few years.
• Mr. Sidali’s factory for animal food was inactive for many years because the public railroad company ONCF claimed the land for the construction of a railroad track. For quite a long time, Mr. Sidali could not do anything about it, but legal security vis-à-vis governmental interventions have improved. The factory has been up and running again for over a year now, and in January 2009 the process of an indemnity suit will come to a close.
• Mr. Sidali has expanded his hotel to include a nightclub. In spite of his fulfillment of all security requirements, he has been waiting for an authorization for over two years now. He categorically refuses to pay bribes to accelerate the process.

* In Nador the guichet unique is in the offices of the CRI, the regional investment centre.