Morocco’s Tanger Med Industrial Zone, 2nd most competitive in world ranking

Morocco’s Tanger Med Industrial Zone ranked 2nd most attractive on a Financial Times FDI Intelligence ranking.

Tanger Med Industrial Zone stood out in the ranking, dubbed FDI Global Free Zones of the Year 2020, which compares the competitiveness and attractiveness of 100 platforms across the world.

Tanger Med was outperformed only by Dubai Multi Commodities Center with the 3rd place going to Katowice Special Economic Zone.

“This is the first time an African zone ranks that high in the ranking, which is testament to the tremendous rise of the network of zones developed by operator Tanger Med around the Tanger Med port on the Gibraltar Strait, one of Africa’s busiest,” said the FDI report.

Tangier Med Free zone also topped the list of “Large Tenants” which collects data on industrial investors employing more than 250 employees globally, a turnover of more than $55.8M and/or taking more than 5000sq ft of space in the zone.

It was also distinguished for its “specialism Award in Automotive” thanks to the dynamism of an established automotive ecosystem of tier 1, 2 and 3 suppliers serving a large base of OEM including Ford, VW Group, Renault and PSA;

The platform also won the 1st African prize for SME’s due to the quality infrastructure and the commercial opportunities offered.

Developed over an area of 20 Million m2 and encompassing 6 activity zones, Tanger Med Zones is home to more than 1 000 companies active in the sectors of automotive, aeronautics, logistics, textile and trade.

It offers an export platform for large multinationals such as Siemens Gamesa, Magnetti Marelli, Valeo, TI Automotive, APTIV, Sumitomo Electric.

In 2019 a total of $8.8 billion worth of exports transited to the port, which, together with the 6 industrial zones, offer 80,000 jobs.

The platform has attracted more than $6.2 billion of industrial FDI mostly from the EU but also from the USA and Asia.