Li Changchun, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, has held talks with the President of the Moroccan Senate, Mustapha Oukacha, in Morocco's capital city of Rabat.

The two sides exchanged views on strengthening bilateral cooperation and dialogue.

Li Changchun also conveyed greetings from CPPCC Chairman Jia Qinglin and Li praised the development of Sino-Moroccan ties since the two countries established diplomatic relations fifty years ago.

Groupe ONA, a Moroccan investment fund owned by the family of King Mohammed VI, said full-year profit rose 80 percent, helped by investment income and capital gains.

Net income in 2007 advanced to 1.73 billion dirhams ($237.7 million), or 104 dirhams a share, from 959.3 million dirhams, or 59 dirhams, a year earlier, the Casablanca-based fund, which has interests in mining, financial services and retail, said in a statement published today in newspaper L'Economiste.

The Japanese Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) has provided Morocco with two loans totalling 147 million euros to finance road and water supply projects.

The first loan will finance the construction of 630 km of roads under the National Rural Roads Programme, while the second is earmarked for a water supply network in the northern and central provinces of Morocco, a diplomatic source said in Rabat.

JBIC loans to Morocco in the past 10 years, under public development aid, have grown to US$2.18 billion.