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The Moroccan Ministry of Industry and Trade has signed 10 investment agreements amounting to MAD 160 million ($15.8 million) with the aim of boosting the economy of the Fez-Meknes region.
Minister of Industry and Trade Ryad Mezzour was in Fez yesterday with local industrial operators to sign 10 investment agreements for the region of Fez-Meknes, amounting to MAD 160 million ($15.8 million) and generating nearly 520 direct jobs.
Registered in the project bank launched by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, these new investments aim to strengthen SMEs in the region and boost the industrial sovereignty of Morocco.
The projects are supported under programs such as Istitmar PME and Tatwir Green Growth.
These initiatives are divided into the following six critical industrial sectors: chemicals and plastics, textiles and clothing, building materials, electrical and electronics, automotive and renewable energies.
Five of the ten investment projects are related to the chemical, plastics, and paperboard sectors, and include, among other things, the building or expansion of manufacturing facilities.
The sixth project focuses on the local textile and garment industry, and it aims to create ready-to-wear clothing units.
The seventh and eighth investment programs are focused on investments in the building materials, electrical, and electronics sectors, with the goal of establishing a marble processing factory and another manufacturing outlet producing digital and intelligent electric meters.
The remaining two projects are related to the development of a radiator production unit and the installation of a solar panel manufacturing line.
“The industrial sovereignty of our country is inevitably achieved through SMEs,” the minister noted. These new projects, which we have supported and followed, are indicative. They provide tangible evidence of the important role that SMEs play as a vector of regional industrial development and strong link of its economic dynamics,” Mezzour said.
Fez-Meknes is the 5th national region in terms of projects funded by the Task Force Sovereignty Ministry, he added.
“To date, we have 81 investment projects in this region, with Moroccan capital funding 75% of them. This represents 5,536 direct jobs and potential import substitution of MAD 2.5 million ($247,757) and export to MAD 1.574 million ($155,988),” Mezzour underlined.
For him, “the region of Fez-Meknes confirms its dynamism through the variety of industrial sectors that are developing, attesting to its position as an economic hub that generates wealth and employment.”
Thus, he concluded, “we will continue to work together with SMEs to further promote local production.”