Morocco has been able to convert a significant portion of its 21 billion dirhams of imports of construction products and materials into local production. It also has the potential to multiply by 6 its exports of building materials by 2026, according to a study by the Foreign Exchange Office.
The Kingdom is strongly committed to the process of economic and industrial development, and has the potential to substitute imports of building materials by national production, affirms the latest study by the Foreign Exchange Office called “the sector of building materials Construction: Performance and Capacity Development”.
Indeed, the construction sector has become one of the fundamental pillars of the success of this process thanks to its dynamism, its output, the industrial nature of its inputs, the quality of its products and the diversity of its connections with other sectors and branches of the national economy.
According to the financial institution, the domestic industry can ” set even more ambitious goals and conquer export markets“, in particular by transforming its industrial processes so that they are less energy-intensive and lower in terms of carbon. In addition to the production of products with high technological value, the Kingdom must effectively deploy the various instruments of public incentives of a financial, banking and tax nature to succeed in its structural transformation, its modernization and its international development.
The Office notes that the world market for building materials is valued at more than 600 billion dollars per year. A realistic objective by 2026 would be to reach a market share of 0.5%, which will allow the national economy to multiply by 6 its exports of building materials to reach an annual flow of around 3 billions of dollars, the authors of the study estimate.
In addition, the volumes exported of building materials by certain competing countries or partners of Morocco are already much higher, namely 6.5 billion dollars in 2021 for Portugal, 11.6 billion for Turkey, 16.1 billion for France, 17.7 billion for Spain and 24.1 billion for Italy. As for Egypt, the flow of its exports of building materials will exceed 2 billion dollars in 2021, i.e. 3.6 times the level of Morocco (580 million dollars).
Over the past decade, exports of the building materials industry reached 3.6 billion dirhams in 2021, against 1.2 billion dirhams in 2010, achieving an average annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.5%. These sales represent an average of 1.1% of total exports during the period between 2010 and 2021, the document states.
Unlike imports, the evolution of sales in the construction materials sector has been characterized by a continuous increase since 2016, posting an increase of 2.9% in 2020 and then 17.8% in 2021.
In addition, the development of exports in the construction materials sector concerns all products, mainly cement, lime and plaster products, tableware products and various ceramic objects as well as pipe and metal construction accessory products. . These three products represent 42% of total exports of products from the building materials sector in 2021.
According to the study, the evolution of cement, lime and plaster sales is characterized by two main phases. After significant increases between 2010 and 2015, exports of these products have been on a downward trend to settle at 550 MDH in 2021 against 915 MDH in 2015. The export prices of these products record, on their part , an average of 440 DH per ton reaching its highest level in 2010 (597DH/T) and its lowest level in 2020 (334DH/T).
Regarding exports of crockery products and miscellaneous ceramic objects, they show an CAGR of 8.7% over the period 2010-2021. Exports of these products reach their highest value in 2021 with 502 MDH against 382 MDH a year earlier and 238 MDH in 2010.
On the other hand, after a significant drop in 2011, the selling prices of these products are part of a continuous upward trend to reach 16.211 DH per ton in 2021 against
15.735 DH per ton in 2020 (18.316DH/T in 2010), the study indicates.
As for exports of piping and metal construction accessory products, they amounted to 467 MDH in 2021 against 551 MDH a year earlier, i.e. a drop of 15.3%. These sales have been on an upward trend since 2016 to reach their highest level in the last decade in 2020.
Thus, during the period 2010-2021, the structure of Morocco’s customers in the construction materials sector was characterized by the presence of five main customers, namely
Spain, France, Mauritania, the United States of America and the Ivory Coast. These five countries account for 60% of total Moroccan exports in the said sector in 2021 against 56% in 2010.