Morocco has kicked off construction of a high-tech city in Northern Tangier. This comes after China Communications Construction Co (CCCC) and its subsidiary, China Road and Bridge Corp (CRBC) and Morocco-based BMCE Bank signed a memorandum of understanding in April for the development.
The agreement to construct the city known as Tanger Tech Mohammed VI was signed after the withdrawal of China’s Haite group with which BMCE and the northern regional council had expressed interest in 2017 to develop the city in the next 10 years.
“There were disagreements on the ownership of the city among other issues. Our partners are Chinese but this does not mean that the city belongs to Chinese,” said Ilyas El Omari, head of the northern Tangier-Tetouan-Alhoceima region.
Tanger Tech Mohammed VI
Tanger Tech Mohammed VI city will be constructed in three phases covering up to 700 hectares out of 2,000 hectares in total. Work has already started to connect the city to roads, electricity, water and rail. The government of Morocco will grant tax incentives to companies operating in food industries, automotive, aeronautical, renewable energy, chemical and textile.
The tech city will also benefit from its Tanger Med Port which is currently still being expanded to enhance trade, additionally Tanger Med launched new terminals on Friday therefore increasing its container handling capacity to about 9 million making it the largest in the Mediterranean Sea. There is hopes that the tech city will attract investments worth US $10bn and create over 100,000 jobs.
