The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group has just approved additional financing of 57 million euros for Morocco to help finance the ongoing construction of the Nador West Med port complex.
This financing completes a first of nearly 113 million euros, granted by the Bank in 2015, indicates a press release from the AfDB, published on the sidelines of the 57th meetings of the Bank, organized in Accra.
The project concerns the construction of two twenty-foot equivalent container terminals, of three million, a specialized bulk station of four million tons and a general cargo terminal of 33 million tons, specifies the AfDB. Nador West Med will be backed by a commercial, industrial, logistics and tertiary center located in an integrated economic zone which will offer new job opportunities, the same source said.
“At the crossroads of major container and hydrocarbon transport routes, the construction of this new deep-water port infrastructure consolidates the presence of the Kingdom of Morocco on the world’s sea lanes”noted the Director General of the AfDB Group for North Africa, Mohamed El Azizi, quoted by the press release.
“It will be a factor of attractiveness for the Oriental region. A real accelerator of development and regional integration”said Mohammed El Azizi.
For his part, the Bank Group’s country manager for Morocco, Achraf Hassan Tarsim, noted that Nador West Med demonstrates to what extent a latest generation infrastructure, designed in harmony with its environment and its territory, transforms a region. to open it up to the whole world with the development of new industrial sectors and the creation of thousands of jobs.
Nador West Med also aims to increase the logistical competitiveness of the national economy and to secure the country’s supply of hydrocarbons, draining part of the world’s maritime activity which transits through the Mediterranean basin. It carries the will of the Cherifian Kingdom to deepen its anchoring in the African space.
In the logic of active complementarity, this new infrastructure complements the offer of the Tanger Med port, inaugurated in 2004.
The AfDB has been working in Morocco for more than fifty years. Funding covers health, water, agriculture, transport, energy, human development and the financial sector.
These 57th assemblies, which mark a return to face-to-face meetings after the virtual meetings of the past two years, are intended to be an opportunity to discuss ways to facilitate Africa’s energy transition in a context marked by climate change, the repercussions of which are already remarkable in the countries of the continent.
Placed under the theme “Fostering climate resilience and a just energy transition for Africa”, these meetings aim to discuss ways to help African countries adapt to climate change, in particular through the mobilization of the necessary resources.
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