Morocco’s Industrial Pivot: From Textiles to Masks and Ventilators Amid COVID-19 Crisis

An ethanol plant restored in a week, textile factories converted for the production of masks, an industrial unit producing artificial respirators... The Moroccan industry is reinventing itself and adapting to the new coronavirus. This is the observation made by Jeune Afrique.

According to the pan-African magazine, adapting the industrial tool for the manufacture of products that have become vital - and the subject of trade wars between world powers in this era of pandemic - has been an approach adopted by several Moroccan industrial companies.

Thanks to this industrial dynamic, the kingdom is currently manufacturing 500 artificial respirators, 100% "made in Morocco" on the production lines of the Société d’étude et de réalisation mécanique de précision (SERMP). This is a subsidiary of a French group that has been manufacturing aerospace mechanical assemblies since 2005. The company in the Sidi Maarouf industrial zone was also cited as an example. It is adapting its production to the current situation by mobilizing its machines for the manufacture of protective masks with a 100% Moroccan process.

The achievement of these feats was only possible with the financial involvement of the public authorities.