Morocco Aims to Become Africa’s Digital Hub with Industry 4.0 Push

The national plan Maroc Numéric 2020, which places digital change at the center of the concerns and governance bodies of Morocco, is part of its digitization strategy, which has earned it global rankings in Doing Business for several years, reports Eco actu, specifying that in the United Nations e-government development index (EDGI), Morocco gained 4 places in 2020.

Thus, with the start of the fourth industrial revolution, the kingdom is strengthening its digitized digital transformation, says Ludovic Subran, expressing his certainty that Morocco has the potential to make it the digital hub of the area.

"With political stability and rather advanced infrastructure, the North African country already hosts the regional headquarters of several multinationals, particularly in the automotive, agri-food and banking sectors," he said, noting that "in addition, the country enjoys a strong demographic advantage, due to its young population and its old-age dependency ratio (i.e. the ratio between the population aged 65 and over and the working population) of 52%, knowing that this rate is above 60% in France and in most advanced countries". With a high connectivity rate (69% of its population has Internet access), Morocco is the 3rd most connected African country.

Also on the digital level, the Moroccan government has taken measures aimed at "improving the productivity of the industrial apparatus. Not to mention that the Agency for Digital Development (ADD) was created in 2017 to support Morocco on three fronts," Subran recalled, deducing that "these factors contribute to positioning Morocco as the hub country of the digital sector on the continent".

However, Morocco should avoid certain obstacles at all costs in order to facilitate the introduction of digitization into the economic fabric. Thus, with the digital constraints of the post-Covid world, the fourth industrial revolution is a necessity for the kingdom. In addition, "given its positioning compared to the world average, these scores could give rise to a mixed feeling of the country’s digital breakthrough," declares the chief economist of the Allianz group.

Nevertheless, Morocco, which has so far been at the forefront of the most promising African countries, is on its way to becoming the digital hub of the region.