AfDB Approves €268 Million Loan to Boost Morocco’s Industrial Acceleration Program

The program will be used to implement the second phase of the Support Program for the Acceleration of Industrialization in Morocco (PAAIM II), the financial institution said in a statement, according to which it will promote "the industrial acceleration of the Kingdom through the deployment of industrial ecosystems, the improvement of the competitiveness of operators in the sector and the financing of leading industrial economic activities."

PAAIM II is a support for reforms through its complementarity with the Bank’s other areas of intervention, particularly in terms of infrastructure financing that strengthens the country’s logistics competitiveness with greater availability of liquidity with financial institutions, it is indicated.

For Mohamed El Azizi, Director General of the African Development Bank for North Africa, "the second phase of PAAIM will truly consolidate the gains. This is a decisive step in successfully industrializing Morocco, which will bring the Bank’s total financing of PAAIM to over 430 million euros since 2017."

Furthermore, the support program aims to bring the total number of guarantees for very small and medium-sized enterprises to 11,000 by 2020 and to facilitate the financing of projects promoted by small and medium-sized enterprises and industries managed by women.

Since 1970, the African Development Bank has already granted some $10 billion to the kingdom, going to multiple strategic sectors of the Moroccan economy.