Morocco Begins Exporting COVID-19 Protective Masks as Production Surges

Faced with the spread of covid-19, Morocco has doubled its efforts in the manufacture of protective masks. Today, it finds itself in a situation of overproduction such that "the local market is unable to absorb it". The kingdom now has "23 factories that manufacture non-woven fabric protective masks for non-medical use". The national production capacity of this product subsidized by the special covid-19 fund has reached 10 million masks per day. "Masks are now sufficiently available in pharmacies. The delivery rate to pharmacies had to be reduced from 6 to 2 million units per day," the minister said.

And even if Morocco has decided to export this local know-how, it has thought of "securing a strategic stock of 50 million non-woven fabric masks", said the Minister of Commerce, before specifying that "industrialists need to export in order to preserve their production capacities". And the outlet market is already available and is just waiting for these masks. This is the case for France which, like other countries, has found that "the non-woven fabric masks produced in Morocco meet their needs, from a technical point of view".

However, "the resumption of exports remains conditional on reaching the level of strategic storage, i.e. 50 million masks," the minister specified, not excluding "a new suspension if the supply risked not being sufficient to meet local demand". He indicated that "the same approach will be adopted for washable fabric masks whose production has reached 2 million units per day," according to the figures available to Moulay Hafid Elalamy. "We will gradually reach the security stock, i.e. 15 million units," the minister said.