The Moroccan automotive industry is led by investment by French Renault-Nissan Alliance and PSA Group car companies. BYD leads the Chinese investment in Morocco. Investment is encouraged by the Moroccan government by removing certain taxes in the first five years[1] in order to encourage the companies to come. Fiat ended its production role in Morocco in 2003 by selling its stake in Somaca to Renault. There is a small local manufacturing industry including Laraki.
Morocco has signed deals for 26 auto industry projects worth a total of €1.23-billion ($1.45-billion) as it seeks to build its position as an international hub for the sector. The projects announced on Monday are with companies from France, Spain, Italy, China, South Korea, Japan and the US, and are expected to create more than 11 500 jobs, the government statement said.
Morocco expects to produce one million vehicles with a local integration rate of 80% by 2020. Against 650,000 currently, the achievement of a rate of local integration of vehicles leaving Morocco by 80% and a turnover of 10 billion euros, with the aim to create 160,000 jobs.
Opinion of Magatte Wade
“Well, Morocco jumped from 130th to 53rd in Doing Business rankings since 2008.
What Morocco actually did is very simple: they stopped making it impossible to start and run a business. No more six-month permit processes. No more bureaucratic hell. They just let people BUILD.
I’ve been saying this forever: when you stop strangling entrepreneurs with paperwork, they create more jobs, which means more prosperity for everyone.
Morocco be making a million cars a year by 2025, with 60% of the parts made right there. Their automotive sector has created over 220,000 jobs. And the best part is that Morocco did all this as a constitutional monarchy.
So no, democracy isn’t a prerequisite to prosperity.”
Black Economics says
Well done to Morocco. Its impressive what they are doing, and very quietly too. Most of us though Morocco’s main export was tourism. There has been systematic growth in the industry since 1960, with very little fanfare. Now to discover they will be doing a similar amount of cars as the behamoth that is China is actually exciting. French companies have been particularly instrumental in the growth. The proximity to the European market has been an advantage for Morocco, and of course – land and labour is cheaper than in Europe itself.
Its also fascinating to see women in hijab on the assembly line.
