King Hassan of Morocco has announced that peasants will own sugar best factories and run same of the country's nationalised farms.

In a broadcast on his 44th birthday and National Youth Day the King said the measures which were based on Moslem socialism were designed to try and share the country's wealth more fairly.

The peasants who grow the sugar best will get 75 per cent of the shares in state-owned sugar plants at Beni Mellal and Oued Bhat in Central Morocco. The factory workers will also get a block of the shares.

The Moroccan government nationalised 520,000 acres (210,000 hectares) of foreign farms last March and a 'Jemaa' or assembly of local peasants will run some of these. They will be free to hire foreign farm managers for example and if the experiment proves successful other farms will be run in the same way.

The King said the moves were part of a social and economic revival to be launched in the coming year.