North African manufacturing and trade hub, positioned on Europe's southern doorstep and as a northern entry to Africa. Led by King Muhammad VI, whose government has pursued investor-friendly policies.
Morocco spent between 25% and 38% of GDP a year on infrastructure from 2001 to 2017, among the most in the world. Investments include a high-speed train running up the country's west coast, extensive wind and solar farms, and the expansion of special economic zones.
Morocco struck a free-trade agreement with the EU in 2000, followed by preferential deals with 60 other countries. The country has drawn about $40bn of greenfield manufacturing investment since 2020, according to fDi Markets, catapulting it into the list of the world's largest recipients. Exports have risen by two-thirds in the past five years.
The sprawling port of Tanger Med on the north coast ships cars and goods to 180 locations worldwide. Since an expansion of Tanger Med in 2019, volumes at the nearby Port of Algeciras in Spain have struggled to grow. Ships cross to Europe every hour. Down the coast, Kenitra, an industrial zone on the outskirts of Rabat, hosts Stellantis, Lear, Faurecia and Nexteer. Car firms have invested more than $8bn in Morocco since 2012, about a quarter of all foreign investment in the period. Morocco became the biggest exporter of cars and parts to Europe, surpassing China and Japan.
SIMRA, a local subsidiary of Segula Technologies, a French aerospace-engineering firm, produces parts accounting for about 5% of the components in an Airbus A320 jet by value, up from about 2% a decade ago. Alstom manufactures electric switch boxes and cables at a factory in Fez. The government hopes to support more than 50 high-value sectors, including aerospace and pharmaceuticals.
Chinese firms have struck deals to invest at least $10bn in electric vehicles and batteries, representing about 5% of all investments related to the Belt and Road Initiative worldwide over the past two years. Gotion, a battery-maker with nearly 4% of the global market, has invested over $6bn in a factory in Kenitra. China Overseas Engineering Group is set to help build a high-speed rail line.
Entanglement with China could draw Morocco into Donald Trump's trade wars. In 2023 the European Commission imposed anti-dumping duties on aluminium car wheels, most of which are made by CITIC Dicastal, a Chinese company with several factories in Kenitra; the firm subsequently chose Portugal over Morocco for a new facility. CATL, the world's biggest battery-maker, looked at Kenitra for a new factory but was lured by financial inducements offered by Spain. Few domestic industrial heavyweights exist; at Kenitra there is only one Moroccan company, making plastics and plating.
Western Sahara is a region the size of Britain on Morocco's southern border. Morocco occupies over two-thirds of its land and claims ownership of the territory. The Polisario Front, a resistance group backed by Algeria, Morocco's long-standing rival, represents the territory's indigenous Sahrawi population and accuses Morocco of occupation. The United Nations considers the territory occupied and contested.
Morocco exports large volumes of phosphates from Western Sahara and auctions off lucrative fishing contracts. But it has also pursued a strategy of enriching the territory to maintain control. In January 2025 it inaugurated a new 1,000km road costing $1bn connecting Dakhla, a city in southern Western Sahara, to Morocco proper, and started direct flights from Dakhla to Europe. It is building a $1.2bn port in Dakhla, along with a desalination plant and a green-hydrogen project, and offers tax breaks and incentives for new businesses.
Morocco established diplomatic ties with Israel in 2020 as part of the Abraham accords. Since then it has bought Israeli self-propelled cannons, air-defence missiles, a spy satellite and drones. In November 2025 it announced a production facility for small tactical attack drones in partnership with a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries—the first time an Israeli-designed weapon system will be made in an Arab country.
Morocco is one of the biggest investors in Africa. It is leading work on a 5,600km gas pipeline to Nigeria, passing through 11 other countries. POSCO, a South Korean industrial firm, and Engie, a French energy company, have set up in Casablanca Finance City, a business and finance hub which touts itself as a gateway to Africa.
Performance: A statement of the speed at which a computer system works. Or rather, might work under certain circumstances. Or was rumored to be working over in Jersey about a month ago.