Morocco Aims to Boost Domestic Military Production, Reduce Arms Imports

This ambitious project will allow Morocco to substantially reduce the heavy bill for the purchase of weapons and military equipment, reports the newspaper Al Ahdath Al Maghribia.

Indeed, the military budget for 2019 amounts to 39.3 billion dirhams compared to 35.8 billion last year, an increase of 10%. Driven by this observation, the Kingdom intends to develop the manufacture and maintenance of military equipment, according to a report by the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee.

Already, the Kingdom wants to require any arms supplier to commit to transferring the technology for the manufacture of military equipment and equipment to the Royal Armed Forces (FAR), said Abdellatif Loudiyi, the delegate minister in charge of the National Defense Administration. Similarly, companies will be required to create arms companies in Morocco or invest in other areas, he added.

The same source indicates that Morocco has signed agreements to purchase defense weapon patents from European, Russian, Chinese and Indian industrial complexes. Countries such as Spain, the United Kingdom and Brazil have officially announced that they want to establish a defense military industry in the Kingdom. Last June, Rabat and Brasilia had signed an agreement on the transfer of military technology to Morocco.