Morocco Tightens Import Controls to Boost Product Safety and Efficiency

The new system imposes new control rules in the country of origin and makes it possible to avoid the import into Morocco of poor quality products or those presenting a risk for the consumer and the environment. As part of the implementation of this reform initiated by the Ministry of Industry, a call for expressions of interest was launched in April 2018 and saw the participation of several organizations, five of which were preselected. In the end, three candidates were selected after studying their files. These are Bureau Veritas, Applus Fomento and TUV Rheiland.

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The ministry signed an accreditation agreement with each of these three organizations, in accordance with Decree No. 3873-13 of December 26, 2013 relating to the accreditation of conformity assessment bodies. The document, published in the Official Journal, provides for the payment of fees allocated by the ministry to support Moroccan exporting companies in difficult markets.

To date, the system put in place since February 2020 has proven its worth, according to the ministry which, after checks, notes a significant reduction in fraud as well as transit times. The average time for transmitting control results has dropped from 3.73 days to 1.24 days and the average time for scheduling physical visits has dropped from 1.85 days to 0.93 days, the ministry said.

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Before launching the reform, the ministry carried out a major awareness-raising mission to exchange with all stakeholders, in particular freight forwarders and importers, merchant associations in the city of Casablanca, etc. Teams from the ministry have been seconded to ensure the daily smooth running of the system and the monitoring of the organizations. This control work led to the suspension in 2020 of one of the organizations and a second in 2021.