Morocco’s economic geography is undergoing a quiet but significant transformation, according to the editorialist of Aujourd’hui le Maroc. The latest meeting of the National Investment Commission revealed that approved projects are now being located in provinces such as Al Haouz, El Jadida, Moulay Yacoub, Nador, Rehamna and Taroudant — territories not traditionally associated with major investment flows and not previously counted among the country’s established economic poles.
The shift is not accidental. The new investment support framework that entered into force in 2023 is beginning to deliver one of its most anticipated effects: the redistribution of investment projects toward less-solicited territories. By providing incentives that make it financially attractive to invest outside the traditional urban cores, the system is creating measurable incentives for project sponsors to consider a broader range of locations. If the trend holds, it promises to reduce the territorial imbalances that have long concentrated economic growth in a handful of metropolitan areas.
The editorialist argues, however, that national incentive frameworks are necessary but not sufficient. The coming phase of territorial economic development will depend heavily on the capacity of regions, provinces, communes, regional investment centres and professional chambers to become active promoters of their own potential rather than passive recipients of centrally determined allocation decisions.
Competition for investment, the editorialist notes, is no longer primarily inter-national. It has become increasingly inter-regional and even inter-provincial, with each territory competing against others to attract mobile capital. Succeeding in this environment demands more than fiscal advantages: it requires a clear territorial strategy, a precise knowledge of the sectors in which a given area has structural advantages, a legible and accessible land offer, available skills, well-adapted infrastructure and a credible, well-presented project for the territory’s economic future.
Territories that will succeed are those that do not merely await investors but go out to meet them with a coherent economic vision and the governance capacity to inspire confidence. The challenge, in the editorial’s framing, is to ensure that the redistribution of investment is accompanied by a redistribution of ambition — transforming each territory into a genuine destination in its own right, capable of articulating what makes it distinctive and worth choosing.
