The Program Aimed at Enhancing Medina of Fez Reflects Importance Given by the Sovereign to the City's Cultural Legacy: Minister

Fez  - The program aimed at enhancing the economic activities and improving the living environment in the Medina of Fez (2020-2024), launched Monday by HM King Mohammed VI, reflects the importance given by the Sovereign to the city's cultural legacy, said minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, government spokesperson, El Hassan Abyaba. This program is in line with the high royal instructions that are intended to promote the cultural legacy of the city of Fez as well as its historic sites with a view to promoting the city as a capital of culture and a tourist destination, the minister told reporters.

Abyaba, who was among the signatories of the partnership and financing agreement relating to this program, said the program is also in line with the importance given to cultural sites and legacy and reinforces the civilizational position of the Medina of Fez. He underlined, in this regard, that his department is committed to ensuring the implementation of the program along with the other partners.

This new program, which concerns 1,197 sites, provides for the restoration and rehabilitation of the historical heritage of the medina of Fez (4 sites/MAD 13.5 million), the requalification and upgrading of urban areas (9 sites/MAD 105.55 million), the strengthening of the tourist and economic attractiveness of this City-Museum (33 sites/MAD 87.5 million), the development of local social facilities (171 sites/ MAD 263.45 million) and the renovation of dangerously run-down housing (980 sites/ MAD 200 million). This program, worth 670 million dirhams, testifies to HM the King's constant willingness to preserve the architectural and historical character of the medina of Fez and to promote the influence of this thousand-year-old city, inscribed in 1981 on the World Heritage List by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).