Thanks to its critical minerals and manufacturing growth, Morocco has become crucial to China, the European Union and the United States, says the Washington-based Heritage Foundation.
The North African Kingdom controls 70% of the world’s phosphate reserves that are essential to produce fertilizers and lithium phosphate battery chemistries, underlines a research published by the American think-tank.
Morocco, the only African nation with a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States, has enhanced its economic attractiveness with the establishment of free-trade zones such as Medparc which is focusing on aeronautics, defence, security, and space-related industries, says the Heritage Foundation analysis penned by Miles Pollard and Peyton Cleidon
Located near a major logistics network of modern rail, ports, and roads, these free-trade zones are export-oriented in nature, capitalizing on Morocco’s geographical position straddling the Atlantic and Mediterranean trade routes.
Furthermore, Morocco has become a major destination for Chinese activity associated with the electric car and battery industries, says the Heritage Foundation analysis, citing in this regard the Tangier tech hub which has received $ 10 billion in Chinese investment to boost EV battery production.
Because of Morocco’s strategic position, huge natural resource reserves, and free-trade agreements with the U.S, and EU, China has increasingly looked upon the country’s free-trade zones as the solution to Western tariffs, but not every Chinese investment in the country is tariff circumnavigation.
The Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Index of Economic Freedom gives Morocco a score of 60.3 (placing it in the “moderately free” category) and making Morocco’s free-trade zone a model for African industrialization.
According to the U.S. think-tank experts, Morocco seeks to be economically close to the EU while fostering strong relationships with the world’s greatest superpowers, China and the U.S. With Africa notorious for unpredictability, bureaucracy, and stringent infrastructure regulations, Morocco offers a good example what the continent can become in the future !
