Chinese companies are betting on Morocco as a logistics center to produce and export batteries for electric cars to Europe, Africa, and America, taking advantage of the geographical location, trade agreements, resources, and an already existing automotive industry in the Maghreb country.
The announcement last week that the Chinese group Gotion High-Tech will open a battery gigafactory in Morocco is the latest in a series of at least six companies from the Asian giant that will install factories related to this product, supported by the Moroccan government, which is committed to making the country a leading example in this field.
This news comes after two years of tightening trade relations between the two countries, at a time when the Moroccan automotive industry produces 700,000 cars annually for Stellantis and Renault, and aims to transform from thermal to electric engines to meet European demand.
“Morocco is making a very strong commitment to the electric vehicle sector,” Hicham Chaoudri, Investment Director of the Ministry of Investment and Public Policy Evaluation, told EFE, reminding that it is the first non-EU country to export cars to the EU.
According to Chaoudri, Morocco wants to move towards the production of electric engines and has turned to China because “they are the world leaders” in the sector.
In 2016, King Mohammed VI visited Beijing and consolidated the bilateral relationship, and in January 2022, the foreign ministers of the two countries signed an agreement under the Chinese “Belt and Road Initiative” to facilitate the establishment of Chinese companies.
In April 2023, Moroccan Investment Minister Mouhcin Jazouli made a tour of China, and since then there has been a stream of projects with investments of at least 2.45 billion euros in the Maghreb country.
The most substantial is the recently announced Gotion, which will invest nearly 1.2 billion euros in its factory in Kenitra (north of Rabat), where an automotive industrial ecosystem already exists around the Stellantis factory.
A little further north, in the Tangier Tech technological complex (near the Tangier Med mega-port), Hunan Zhongke Shinzoom Technology, specializing in electromagnetic equipment and battery anodes, announced last month that it will set up a factory with an investment of 460 million euros and will employ 1,500 people.
In the same industrial zone, the BTR New Material group announced last March that it would invest 278 million euros in another factory to produce 50,000 tons of cathodes per year.
One of the reasons attracting Chinese investments is Morocco’s resources, where materials such as phosphates (it is one of the world’s largest producers), manganese, and cobalt are extracted and used in these batteries.
However, Chaoudri assures that this is not the main reason. According to the director, five reasons play a major role, such as the “economic and political stability of the country” and the infrastructure, mentioning Tangier Med, the highways, and the high-speed train that connects Tangier, Kenitra, and Casablanca.
Also, he says, the “young and qualified workforce,” about fifty free trade agreements – including with the EU and the US – and that the current automotive industry “uses wind and solar energy.”
In addition to the Tangier and Kenitra areas, Chinese companies plan to settle in Casablanca, Morocco’s economic capital, which has a port seeking to expand its influence. Last Thursday, the port authority announced a new freight route, by train and ship, with the Chinese province of Sichuan.
There, the Chinese CNGR, together with the holding company of the Moroccan royal family, Al Mada, will build an industrial base for tertiary precursors, iron phosphate and lithium, and battery recycling to “meet the growing and strong demand for new energy vehicles in Europe and the United States,” said the Asian company.
Also in Casablanca, Zhejiang Hailiang plans to set up a factory with an investment of 264 million euros to manufacture plates for lithium batteries and serve its customers in Europe, America, the Middle East, and Africa, Bloomberg reported.
A third Chinese company, Tinci Materials, is in talks with the Moroccan government to move its battery electrolyte project from the Czech Republic to Casablanca, sources close to the negotiations told EFE.
Morocco World News
Add comment