Moroccan publishing group ‘Maroc Soir’ to expand in the Gulf

Thursday March 30th 2006, 8:18 am
Filed under: Newspapers

Morocco’s leading publishing group will invest for the first time in the Gulf. Moroccan daily Le Matin will have a Gulf edition, the newspaper announced. Othman al-Omeir, the Saudi president of publishing group Maroc Soir, has reportedly met the king of Bahrain Hamad al-Khalifa to discuss the editorial plan. The daily reported that the project aims to initially attract 500,000 readers, the number of francophone residents in the Gulf. After the meeting, the king of Bahrain gave instructions to the information ministry to ‘facilitate the publication in Manama of the francophone daily,’ the paper reported on Monday. Othman al-Omeir, a former journalist who used to publish the London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat, an Arabic language daily, bought the group in 2004 for MAD 150m (over EUR 13m). The publishing group owns French language daily Le Matin, Arab language paper Assahra al-Maghribiya and Spanish daily La Manana, as well as internet paper Morocco Times, published in English. Maroc Soir was the last paper thus far opened by the group, in November 2005. (AKI News,March 30, 2006)

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