Abidjan, Feb 26 (IANS): In a bid to promote South-South cooperation as a development tool for the people of sub-Saharan Africa, Morocco has launched two real estate projects in Cote D' Ivoire's capital Abidjan that will see the construction of 8,000 low-cost housing units.

Morocco's King Mohammed VI, who is visiting Cote D' Ivoire, launched the projects Tuesday in the presence of Ivorian Prime Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan, the Maghreb Arab Press (MAP) reported.

While one project will cover 26 hectares of land with 7,500 houses coming up, the other project will cover three hectares and will have 530 houses.

The projects, costing 2.2 billion Moroccan dirhams (around $35.5 million), will be carried out by the Moroccan real estate group Addoha.

Morocco's gesture is in line with the speech of King Mohammad VI at the opening session of the Ivorian-Moroccan Economic Summit held here Monday wherein he said that Africa did not need assistance as much as more mutually beneficial partnerships.

King Mohammed VI is currently on a tour of sub-Saharan and West Africa amid talk that this was part of Moroccan diplomacy to lobby for its return to the African Union which it left in 1984 in protest against the admission of the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.