In a few years, cars have become the most important exports of Morocco, ahead of traditional materials such as phosphate and agricultural food products. This achievement is due to a strategy launched in 1959 in Casablanca and its effects spread year after year over half a century, reaching in 2007 the historic agreement between the Kingdom and the Renault Group to build a large assembly plant in Tangier. Morocco's automobile industry is no longer only supplying the local market, but has exported most of its production, unlike its neighbors, and has established itself as the largest private car producer in the Arab world.
On 25 October, an extraordinary meeting was held in Marrakech between the King of Morocco Mohammed VI and the head of Renault's Mitsubishi Nissan Group (3.5 million cars) Carlos Ghosn. This was not followed by a public statement but a mere picture and a brief comment by Moroccan Minister of Industry Moulay Hafiz al-Alami: The production of the Moroccan automobile company (SAMACA) in southern Casablanca will be doubled by 2022.
The company has experienced many difficulties in the past. It was launched in 1959 by a government controlled by the Left, where a government corporation with Fiat was involved. In the first stage, 6,000 cars were planned to be installed in the city. The production subsequently reached between 20,000 and 40,000 units per year, and the plant went through many hands (Fiat, Simka, Peugeot and Bruno). The factory experienced a recession in the following decades before being privatized in 2003 for the Renault Group. This was a strategic choice. It is no longer confined to the installation of cars destined for the modest Moroccan market (168 thousand cars in 2017), but the heavy export of most of the production to Europe, which is indicative of the quality.
The capital was initially modest: barely 10 million euros for state and Fiat stock, and another 20 million to raise the plant's production capacity to 70,000 cars a year. The project benefited from the granting of a large tax: exemption from customs duties and a negligible import tax and value added tax of 7% instead of 20%.
A huge factory near Tangier
Carlos Ghosn, who was satisfied with this first Moroccan experience, signed a four-year contract with the same conditions for a more ambitious process of building a factory from scratch, 30 kilometers from Tangier. More than 300,000 cars from the Ludgi Sandero and Ducer models For export. Through the Renault-Tangier Mediterranean Company through two production chains.
Sumacca, which was privatized, was taken as a model but five times larger. Another advantage of the project is that it has the necessary size to produce a local automobile industry in every sense of the word. Cost of investment: 1.1 billion euros.
After 5 years, despite the global financial crisis in 2008, the first car emerged from the installation chains. On April 6, 2012, the first Lodi train was carried to the new port of Tangier, 30 km away. Within five years, a million cars have been installed in the Malousa area.
As a result of the attractiveness created by the presence of a factory employing 8,000 workers, Morocco has been the world's leading subcontractor. Over the next year, the Peugeot Group plans to launch a plant with a capacity of 100,000 cars, Especially. And is expected to double by 2023. It has been followed by dozens of Moroccan and foreign small and medium companies that accompany the orders, and currently supplies the factory with aluminum wheel edges, driving boards and shock absorbers.
Local industry
The collection of spare parts produced elsewhere is more expensive than if the car were fully made and imported. Thus the industry has become the most problematic component of the ambitious car of hundreds of professionals who work in the field around the automotive industry. They were organized in the highly active Lamica Association (Moroccan Association for the manufacture and marketing of cars), which was renamed in 2017 to become the Moroccan Association for the manufacture and installation of cars.
The majority of the installation process seems to be a scam for the customer who pays more for the same car: the Vanderiro sold in Algeria is more than 3,000 euros than those sold in Morocco.
Currently, the rate of local integration, ie, the proportion of locally produced ingredients, does not exceed 40%. The engine comes from the Renault factory in Seville, and the base and trunk of the car come from abroad as well. In order to achieve a local integration rate of 65%, the State, supported by Lamica, launched a large "subcontracting" plan. The plan aims to achieve a turnover of 24 billion dirhams (about 2.2 billion euros) and to create 90,000 jobs for less than 12,000 today.
There are five sub-sectors under way:
"Cables": is expected to create more than 20 thousand jobs and access to 10 billion dirhams of export. It is the most advanced subsector today. "Interior designs for cars / seats": More than 13,500 jobs and 5.2 billion dirhams are expected to be exported. "Batteries": 1500 jobs are expected to be created. "Metal Sheet Formation": 5,000 job opportunities and 4.5 billion dirhams of export. "PowerTran Group": launched in March 2015 for engines and gearboxes, the noblest parts of the car.
In 2016, Renault also committed to double its domestic purchases from 750 million to 1,500 million euros. And confirmed the goal of achieving the integration of production in Renault Tangier cars 65%. It is expected to build 26 factories soon and invest more than one billion euros.
Unprecedented production cost
Morocco, as well as the network of local subcontractors around SOMACA and RONO Tangier, are located in specialized industrial zones with four main advantages: the favorable position of the Tangier region, near Europe, where markets and supplies are located, the near- With the European Union guaranteeing regularity in trade. More importantly, Morocco is providing unbeatable production costs, especially in the field of labor, which costs 10 times less than France. In a country where the official rate of unemployment has been suspended for years, about 10 percent of the labor force, this is not insignificant, especially since the wages of Renault Tangier range from 370 to 460 euros, well above the minimum wage of 218 euros.
Reno Tangier is a major manufacturer of Dacia, the most popular car in the group, far beyond its original hometown of Romania or even Turkey. In the future, Renault is likely to produce the largest number of cars in Morocco (around 500,000 in 2022) in France (less than 780,000 last year).
Failure in Algeria and Tunisia
The Kingdom of Morocco has chosen to open up to abroad and accepted participation in the majority of foreign capital in its factories (about 80% in Sumacca and 52.4% in Renault Tangier), minimized its tax claims and benefited from the assistance of the former colonial power in its infrastructure; French Development in September 2010 a loan of 20 million euros to establish 4 vocational training institutes specialized in the automotive industry. In contrast, there was a large export of an industrial product that was not present in the traditional production system.
In contrast, their two Maghreb neighbors chose the opposite: small size installation plants directed only to meet the local market where the state - or private national groups in Algeria - retained a majority with similar tax breaks and higher selling prices.
Algeria has effectively banned the importation of new cars since 2017, forcing foreign industrialists to carry out local installation workshops with a promise of integration of production that will probably never be achieved. Which is not even monitored by public interests that are often unsuccessful.
Tunisia, for its part, has set up a factory to produce 3500 bpp (utility cars) annually, creating a small number of jobs (less than 400), more expensive than newer models and does little to the country's economy (less than 10 million euros invested).
Moroccan progress can not be denied. But is it sustainable? If Morocco develops and wages rise, its comparative advantage will no longer have to enter a new stage in the technical field and the quality of production or even expand into new branches, as is the case with the aviation industry, which has also begun.
