Tangier-Med: project that will change the face of northern Morocco, UK paper
Under the headline "Tangiers sees profit on its doorstep," the paper notes that "it is here in the northern tip of Morocco that the African state is investing much of its hopes to boost industry, create more than 100,000 jobs and diversify an economy overly dependent on the ups and downs of rain-fed agriculture."
"The country, writes the UK paper, after years of discussion is finally putting in place the infrastructure to take advantage of its proximity to Europe with a port complex 40km east of Tangier, including associated logistics and industrial zones."
"The plan known as the Tangier Med project, was launched in 2002 but is now gathering momentum," according to FT which recalls that "the first of the new port’s terminals opened last July and a second is scheduled to begin operating this summer, giving it a capacity of 3.5m container equivalents (teu) per year."
"By leveraging off the port, says the Financial Times, the hope is to turn the region into a transit and logistics hub; a zone designed to attract international manufacturers to build and export, where goods moving between Asia, Europe and the US can be packed or assembled."
Quoting the chairman of the Tangier Mediterranean Special Agency (TMSA) Said Elhadi, the London-based paper stresses that "the TMSA can already claim one high-profile success." "In September, Renault and Nissan announced a USD 880Mn project to build a factory in Tangier Med's industrial zone with the capacity to produce 200,000 cars a year from 2010, and eventually up to 400,000 a year," it points out.
To back its plans, Mr. Elhadi says, the government is investing about Euro 2Bn (USD 2.94Bn) in the port, the zones and associated highways and railways while a further Euro 1.4Bn (USD 2Bn) will be spent on increasing the port’s capacity with an additional 5Mn teu.
It is hoped that the construction of Tangier Med II will begin at the end of this year, opening in 2012 and reaching full capacity in 2015. With an overall capacity of 8.5m teu, it would be the largest port in the Mediterranean, the publication goes on.
The newspaper also brings to mind that “the city of Tangier has many pressing challenges ahead, particularly in the areas of housing capacity and urban transportation. And labor scarcity, at all levels, is also an important issue to solve," conceding that there are critical issues to be addressed but roads and railways are being built to support the project, with a new urban center planned near the investment zone and 200,000 housing units in Tangier.
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