China Challenges France for Morocco’s High-Speed Rail Project

Thanks to its usual lobbying, Beijing has managed to position itself behind the scenes through its state-owned company China Railway Construction Corp, a specialist in the construction of rail infrastructure, reports Maghreb Confidentiel.

Thus, the competitive rates that the Chinese have proposed tend to exclude the French from the project. Yet they have so far "locked" the Moroccan TGV. Paris had indeed financed 51% of the first high-speed line (LGV) connecting Casablanca to Tangier (including the rolling stock), i.e. 1.1 billion euros in the form of loans from the Treasury Directorate and the French Development Agency (AFD), it is specified.

Even if Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, recently made a trip to Morocco, this situation nevertheless undermines diplomatic relations between Paris and Rabat. Moreover, the French Minister of Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, postponed his trip to Tangier, scheduled for November 23, the first anniversary of the inauguration of the first TGV.

Last November, King Mohammed VI had announced, in his speech on the 44th anniversary of the Green March, that reflections would be carried out on the project to build a new railway line connecting Marrakech to Agadir.