Chinese Firm Wins Bid for Morocco’s Marrakech-Agadir High-Speed Rail Study

A subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned company China State Railway Group, China Railway Design Corporation "has proposed an offer less than half the price of the CID/Novec/SETEC group, i.e. 44 million dirhams against 96 million dirhams," say Les Inspirations Eco, specifying that the cost of this contract "was estimated at 120 million dirhams by the ONCF".

As part of this contract, the Chinese company will carry out the APS studies related to the infrastructure, civil engineering and railway equipment, and to the railway operation as well as its operating system. The execution time of the contract is 16 months. The Chinese company should therefore deliver the studies in October 2024.

The Marrakech-Agadir LGV includes the main line, its connections to the existing network, the connection to the Remote Control Post (PCD), the facilities for the connections to the existing and future stations, the Central Substation (CSS), the work bases to be created, and the maintenance workshop.

The performance and safety level of this line must be "globally at least equivalent to those offered by the Tangier-Kenitra high-speed line, put into service in 2018," insists the ONCF. For the record, the preliminary studies of the project have already been launched. 230 km long, the Marrakech-Agadir LGV should require a budget of 100 billion dirhams.