French and Chinese Firms Vie for Lucrative Moroccan Highway Contract

Only eight companies were able to pass the prequalification phase. The French group NGE was qualified only for the first section, alongside SGTM and its Chinese partner Sinohydro Bureau 5. The company GTR, a subsidiary of Colas, was also qualified for the same section. Xianjiang Beixin Road & Bridge Group was qualified only for the third section, as was China Road and Bridge Corporation. Sichuan Transportation Construction, on the other hand, qualified for the third section, as did the Chinese consortium CWE-FHCC. On the Moroccan side, the Moroccan company Mojazine qualified for the second section. It is the only company to have obtained this qualification for this part of the project.

More than 14 companies were competing for the first section of the motorway connecting Guercif to Nador. These included the companies Xianjiang Beixin Road & Bridge Group, and China Road and Bridge Corporation, which had previously participated in the "Tanger Tech" project, as well as the Moroccan consortium SSMT-Sakitra, the French company NGE, represented by its Moroccan subsidiary NGE Contracting, the French company Colas participating through its subsidiary Grands Travaux Routiers (GTR), the SGTM-Sinohydro Bureau 5 consortium, a Moroccan-Chinese consortium that had already participated in the construction of the Rabat underground railway tunnel. The Chinese companies Sichuan Transportation Construction Group, China Construction Six Engineering Bureau Corp, as well as the CWE-FHCC consortium were also on the list. The Indian company Ashoka Buildcon Limited, as well as consortia such as Staport-Jet Contractors and STAM-VIAS, Mojazine and Houar had also submitted their bids.

After examining the files, the SSMT-Sakitra consortium, the STAM-VIAS consortium, the Indian company Ashoka Buildcon Limited, the Chinese company China Construction Sixth Engineering Bureau, the Staport-Jet Contractors consortium and Houar were eliminated for not meeting the prequalification criteria.

Last May, the Ministry of Equipment and Water launched the Guercif-Nador motorway project financed by the African Development Bank (AfDB). This project has been divided into three sections covering a total length of 36 kilometers. The construction of this section will include a two-lane motorway in each direction, six bridges, 46 engineering structures, as well as an interchange and a road junction.