Morocco’s Dakhla Atlantique Port Project Aims to Boost African Trade Ties

Designed in 2016, this port infrastructure project aims to further strengthen the economic ties between Morocco and its African depth. This port will be a maritime interface for economic integration and a hub for continental and international influence, reports Jeune Afrique, adding that it completes the list of major port successes such as those of Mohammedia, Casablanca, Jorf Lasfar and the new port of Safi.

Located 40 km from the city center, on an area of 1,600 hectares, the complex will be organized into three poles: a commercial port specializing in trade with the continent and with America, a fishing port and a shipyard for boat maintenance, we are told.

In the first years of activity, the forecast traffic is 2.2 million tons for goods and nearly 1 million tons for seafood products, the region offering particularly abundant fishery resources (65% of the exploitable national potential), notes the publication, noting that the future port will also be backed by an industrial and logistics zone, which will also provide a number of direct and indirect jobs, particularly in the agri-food and seafood sectors.

Thus, this new port hub will have positive repercussions on the social fabric of the city and the region in order to support this growing economic momentum, notes the magazine, specifying that the construction site should last eight years, for an estimated cost of 10 billion dirhams.

And to add that the Somagec-SGTM grouping was selected during the pre-selection phase at the end of April 2021 (against competitors such as the French Eiffage and the Egyptian Arab Contractors) and everything "suggests that it is indeed this 100% Moroccan team that will be responsible for carrying out Dakhla Atlantique, after examination of the technical offer".