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2024 Investment Climate Statements: Morocco
Summary and Introduction:
The 2024 U.S. Department of State report, released on July 17th, highlights Morocco’s significant strides in investment under the Visionary Leadership of His Majesty King Mohammed VI. Over the past 25 years, investment has been a cornerstone of Morocco’s socio-economic development.
🔹 Morocco is “actively encouraging and facilitating investment” through policies, trade liberalization, and robust support mechanisms, including the new investment charter and business climate reforms.
🔹 Morocco’s strategic location, political stability, and world-class infrastructure position Morocco as a “regional business hub” and “Gateway to Africa.”
🔹 Record-breaking FDI levels reflect Morocco’s positive momentum, with inflows for the first five months of 2024 reaching the second-highest in Morocco’s economic history.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY – – Table of Contents
- 1. Openness To, and Restrictions Upon, Foreign Investment
- 2. Bilateral Investment and Taxation Treaties
- 3. Legal Regime
- 4. Industrial Policies
- 5. Protection of Property Rights
- 6. Financial Sector
- 7. State-Owned Enterprises
- 8. Responsible Business Conduct
- 9. Corruption
- 10. Political and Security Environment
- 11. Labor Policies and Practices
- 12. U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), and Other Investment Insurance or Development Finance Programs
- 13. Foreign Direct Investment Statistics
- 14. Contact for More Information
2024 Investment Climate Statements: Morocco
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
At the confluence of Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East, Morocco seeks to transform itself into a regional business and industrial hub by leveraging its geographically strategic location, political stability, and world-class infrastructure to expand as a regional manufacturing and export base for international companies. Morocco actively encourages and facilitates foreign investment, particularly in export sectors like manufacturing, through positive macroeconomic policies, trade liberalization, investment incentives, and structural reforms. The Government of Morocco implements strategies aimed at boosting employment, attracting foreign investment, and raising performance and output, designating renewables, automotive, aeronautics, textiles, pharmaceuticals, outsourcing, and agro-industry as key industries. Morocco’s new Investment Charter, adopted in December 2022, significantly expands incentives for foreign investment.
According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s (UNCTAD) World Investment Report 2023 , Morocco attracted the fifth-most foreign direct investment (FDI) in Africa in 2022. Inbound FDI decreased by 6 percent in 2022 to $2.1 billion, vice $2.2 billion in 2021, falling from a 2018 peak of $3.6 billion. In 2021, the latest year for which host country data is available, France (31 percent), the United Arab Emirates (21 percent), and Spain (eight percent) continued to hold the largest shares of FDI stocks, with the United States at five percent. Manufacturing attracted the highest share of FDI stocks (23.6 percent), followed by real estate (18.8 percent), telecommunications (12.1 percent), tourism, and energy and mines (6.3 percent) in 2021.
Morocco continues to market itself as the “gateway to Africa” through its return to the African Union in January 2017 and by joining the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) upon its launch in 2021. In June 2019, Morocco opened an extension of the Tangier-Med commercial shipping port, making it the largest port in Africa and the Mediterranean; the government is developing a third phase for the port which will increase capacity from nine to ten million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs). Tangier is connected to Morocco’s political capital in Rabat and commercial hub in Casablanca by Africa’s first high-speed train service.
However, inefficient government bureaucracy, corruption, and the slow pace of regulatory reform remain challenges. In addition to these structural issues, the government of Morocco lacks an investment screening process for critical industries such as telecommunications, critical minerals and rare earths, and renewable energy.
Morocco continues to make major investments in renewable energy and is on track to meet its goal of 52 percent of total installed capacity by 2030. The New Development Model, an overarching plan for economic reform released in April 2021, lays out the country’s ambition to increase the share of renewable energy in total energy consumption from 19.5 percent in 2021 to 40 percent by 2035. Opportunities for green investment include smart grids, green hydrogen, energy storage, and renewable energy. In 2023, Morocco recorded over $10 billion in announced investments to build an integrated battery manufacturing and electric vehicle production chain. In March 2024, Morocco announced it would allocate one million hectares of land to green hydrogen production and designated the Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Development as responsible for facilitating investment in this sector.
In February 2023, Morocco was removed from the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) “grey list” of countries subjected to increased monitoring due to deficiencies in anti-money laundering and terrorist financing compliance following a series of reforms to strengthen its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing legislation, regulations, and criminal penalties. In May 2023, the European Commission removed Morocco from the European Union’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing “grey list.”
As of 2024, Morocco has ratified 72 investment treaties to promote and protect investments and 62 economic agreements, including with the United States and most EU nations, that aim to eliminate the double taxation of income or gains. Morocco is the only African continent with a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States, eliminating tariffs on more than 95 percent of qualifying consumer and industrial goods. The Government of Morocco plans to phase out tariffs for some additional products through 2030. The FTA supports Morocco’s goals to develop as a regional financial and trade hub, providing opportunities for the localization of services and the finishing and re-export of goods to markets in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Since the U.S.-Morocco FTA came into effect bilateral trade in goods has grown nearly five-fold. The U.S. and Moroccan governments work closely to increase trade and investment through high-level consultations, bilateral dialogue, and other forums to inform U.S. businesses of investment opportunities and strengthen business-to-business ties.
For more information, please read the full report: https://www.state.gov/reports/2024-investment-climate-statements/morocco/
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