EIB supports Morocco’s railway infrastructure upgrading with €200 Mln loan

The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the Office National des Chemins de Fer (ONCF) have signed on Wednesday a €200 million (2.1 billion dirhams) financing contract, which represents 80% of a total sum of €250 million earmarked by the European financial institution to support ONCF’s investment plan.

The ONCF’s investment plan aims to renew the existing conventional rail infrastructure and to strengthen the modernization of facilities with state-of-the-art technologies throughout the 2300 km of the Moroccan rail network. It will contribute to the development of sustainable, low-carbon mobility, while promoting a better territorial balance in terms of access to rail services, said the EIB in a statement.

The loan will mainly finance projects under the national program to rehabilitate and upgrade Morocco’s rail network, such as infrastructure, equipment and industrial workshops. It will contribute to the renewal and rehabilitation of tracks, engineering structures and electrical traction installations, as well as to the improvement of the rail network’s signaling, telecommunications and safety systems.

Climate change adaptation measures are also planned, such as the implementation of flood protection programs on the network, the statement said, specifying that throughout the duration of the project, the EIB will back ONCF to consolidate its climate adaptation roadmap.

The contract on the remaining €50 million (527 million dirhams) is scheduled to be signed in 2023, said the EIB statement, noting that this is the first project initialed under the Green Partnership with the Kingdom, which was concluded on October 18, 2022 in Rabat, and which represents the first partnership signed under the external dimension of the European Green Deal.

This funding is a concrete expression on the ground of the policy guidelines of the New Agenda for the Mediterranean of the EU and the initiative “Team Europe”, said the statement.