The ball of French officials continues in Morocco. After the Minister Delegate in charge of Foreign Trade, Franck Riester, and the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, it is the turn of the French Minister of the Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, to make a two-day visit to the Kingdom.
The French minister came to Morocco with, in his bag, plenty of cooperation projects capable of repairing relations between the two countries. He took advantage of his speech during the Morocco-France economic forum, which was held on April 26 in Rabat, co-organized by the CGEM and the MEDEF, to list these collaboration offers.
The first obviously concerns the development of renewable energies. Bruno Le Maire wants to see the two countries collaborate in the development of renewable energies, in particular new types of photovoltaic plates, wind power but especially in green hydrogen.
“We will launch a project between IRESEN and the SATT Paris-Saclay accelerator to develop applied research and innovation in decarbonized hydrogen on the basis of a partnership between France and Morocco”, announced the French minister during his speech.
Bruno Le Maire also revealed that “AFD will release a loan of 350 million euros to OCP, so that OCP can invest massively in hydrogen, decarbonization and green investment. This is a major effort by AFD aimed at OCP and the development of green hydrogen in Morocco.”.
Electricity and nuclear networks
Bruno le Maire confirmed the announcement previously made by his colleague Franck Riester, concerning a French investment in the electric highway linking Dakhla to Casablanca. “We want to work in the development of networks, because like many other countries, in Europe and elsewhere, in Morocco the place of production is not necessarily the place of consumption, and one of the great energy challenges, often forgotten, this is the cost of energy transport networks”, he explained.
“You are going to produce energy in the Dakhla region, you need it in the metropolis of Casablanca, you have to build networks to transport this energy between Dakhla and Casablanca. I confirm to you that we are ready to participate in the financing of this infrastructure”, insisted the minister.
Another cooperation file in the field of unsubscribed energy is that of nuclear power. “I also put on the table the possibility of cooperation in the field of nuclear energy production. You know that at the request of the President of the Republic, we are working on these famous SMRs, smaller modular reactors. It is up to the Moroccan government to decide whether it may be interested in this cooperation”, announced Bruno the Mayor. As a reminder, SMRs are one of the options retained by the Ministry of Energy for the introduction of nuclear energy into the national electricity mix.
Finally, the other files for future cooperation concern rail, which includes the training and creation of an ecosystem, aeronautics and automobiles.
