Morocco’s port projects are repositioning the kingdom on the global logistics map and drawing growing interest from foreign powers, Aujourd’hui le Maroc reports. The paper says Tanger Med has already put Morocco on that map and that the effective commissioning of Nador West Med and Dakhla Atlantique will take it a level higher, attracting economies such as France and the United Kingdom.
The French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Morocco (CFCIM) officially launched a Corridors Club a few weeks ago, with a meeting on African logistics corridors as levers of continental integration. Its president, Sébastien Le Bonté, stressed the ambition behind the initiative, while Club president Thierry Poitout spoke of building bridges between the continent’s economic players.
A round table brought together Asmex director general Ferram Mounir, Nisrine Iouzzi, who oversees construction of the new Dakhla Atlantique port, and African Development Bank infrastructure investment officer Hassen Ben Ayed. According to the CFCIM, the exchanges produced concrete avenues for cooperation, and an AI agent dedicated to corridors was presented.
Britain is also circling. The Moroccan embassy in London hosted a high-level round table titled “Beyond the port: the African coastline, a catalyst for growth”, with the participation of Iouzzi and Ahmed Bennis, director general of Tanger Med Zones. Participants explored how corridors could link African economies, including landlocked ones, to global markets, and the scope for UK-Morocco-Africa cooperation on competitive port and industrial ecosystems.
The paper ties the projects to King Mohammed VI’s Atlantic Initiative for the Sahel countries, detailed at a ministerial meeting in Marrakech on 23 December 2023 with Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad. It recalls the King’s call for a strong, competitive national merchant fleet; a strategic study with an international firm has been launched, and several options have since been discussed.