King Mohammed VI appointed Omar Hejira as Deputy Minister for Foreign Trade on Friday, attaching him to the Ministry of Industry, Trade, Investment and Digital Economic Integration. The move comes as Prime Minister Karim Mansouri’s government continues distributing ministerial portfolios in the weeks following its formation.
Born in 1967 in Oujda, Hejira brings an unusual professional background to Morocco’s economic diplomacy. He holds a doctorate in pharmacy, earned in 1993 from the Medical University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland, long before he built the political career that eventually led him to Rabat.
His rise through Moroccan politics began locally rather than nationally. Hejira served two consecutive terms as president of Oujda’s city council, from 2009 to 2021, cementing his standing in the eastern Oriental region before being elected First Vice-President of the Oriental regional council in 2021. That combination of municipal and regional experience gave him close ties to cross-border trade networks along Morocco’s eastern frontier, a background that could prove useful in a portfolio now centered on foreign trade.
Hejira is also no stranger to international forums. He sat on the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe between 2010 and 2015, and has been a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Union since 2021, giving him exposure to parliamentary diplomacy well before entering the executive branch. Since October 2024, he had already served as Secretary of State to the Minister of Industry and Trade in charge of Foreign Trade — a role that Friday’s appointment effectively upgrades and expands.
Analysts following Morocco’s cabinet reshuffle say the promotion signals the government’s intent to raise the institutional profile of foreign trade policy at a time when Rabat is signing new free-trade arrangements and pushing to diversify its export markets beyond its traditional European partners.
Hejira, who is married and has two children, now takes on a demanding brief: steering bilateral trade negotiations, overseeing existing free-trade agreements, and supporting Moroccan exporters as they compete in increasingly crowded global markets.
