(MENAFN)
With the EU seeking to cut its dependence on Russian fossil fuels, Belgium is launching a bid to become the bloc’s import hub for the most prized alternative: green hydrogen. In late September, Belgian Energy Minister Tinne Van der Straeten announced that a call for project proposals would open in October to prepare the country’s ports for a surge over the vital coming years.
As Belgium sets out to find international partners, it would do well to look to Morocco, which has simultaneously unveiled a bold green hydrogen vision. Aiming to establish itself as the leading exporter in North Africa – a region Deloitte has tapped to become the world’s green hydrogen epicentre by 2050 – Morocco plans to harness its massive solar and wind assets to produce a clean energy resource essential for decarbonising heavy industries.
Dubbed “L’Offre Maroc,” Morocco’s renewable hydrogen strategy reflects its rising economic ambition as a regional powerhouse of innovation and industrialisation. Yet with new industries creating fresh opportunities for illicit trade, Rabat will need to seal off regulatory loopholes and tackle the black market to cement its status as a reliable global player.
Rabat laying foundations for economic boom
In recent years, the Moroccan government has introduced a series of projects and policies to fuel a new era of economic and industrial development. Guided by King Mohammed VI’s pro-business reforms, Morocco has begun charting a unique path – outlined in its New Development Model and National Sustainable Development Strategy 2030 – to reconcile growth and environmental imperatives while positioning itself as the “gateway to Africa.”
As Francesco La Camera, Director General of IRENA, has observed, Rabat has been effectively “advancing the deployment of renewable energy to meet growing energy demand while creating new industrial opportunities across the country.” Since initiating its green economy pivot in 2017 to align the country’s development with the UN SDG, Rabat has launched several major infrastructure projects to accelerate its economic transformation.
Among the most notable is Tangier's Mohammed VI Technology City, a smart city comprised of high-tech industrial zones set for completion in 2027; the extension of the Tangier-Med port complex to make it the largest in North Africa; and the Tangier-Kenitra line, the first high-speed railway of its kind in Africa.
Crucially, this massive sustainable infrastructure and industrial investment is allowing Morocco to ramp up local manufacturing capacities while reducing transport-related environmental impacts, helping to boost competitiveness and attract rising levels of foreign direct investment (FDI). Complementing this growing wave of private investment is the government’s Mohammed VI Investment Fund, a $4.7 billion vehicle created in 2021 to finance high-value and job-creating sectors such as renewables and agro-industry.
Innovation partnerships reinforcing emerging economy
While Morocco has embarked on a promising path, its industrial boom and strategic geography make it an illicit trade target, which threatens to undermine its emerging progress. According to the Global Organized Crime Index’s latest national profile, Morocco continues to face significant black-market challenges, particularly concerning the production and export of counterfeit goods to the wider MENA region and Europe. Although local efforts to tackle the illicit trade were historically plagued by insufficient resources for certain sectors, encouraging signs are emerging.
In late September, MAScIR, a scientific research and innovation foundation linked to the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P), signed a research project agreement with global authentication solutions provider SICPA to jointly develop a new marking and detection technology. Local Moroccan media has spotlighted how this marking solution will help manufacturers enhance their technological capacities to fight increasingly sophisticated fraud and counterfeiting methods, with UM6P and MAScIR President Hicham El Habti expressing the project’s ambition to help meet the “current needs of the industrial fabric and economic operators to promote ‘Made in Morocco.’”
This project is notably part of a broader, 5-year research and technological development partnership established between MAScIR and SICPA last February, giving the latter an opportunity to build on its experience facilitating R&D and innovation collaboration in authentication technologies at its Unlimitrust Campus in Prilly, Switzerland. Moreover, SICPA West Africa’s partnership last year with the Casablanca Finance City Authority notably identified fraud and counterfeit threats facing the green hydrogen and agri-food sectors of particular relevance to Morocco’s development.
Tightening up loose regulatory ends
Beyond developing innovative technologies to tackle illicit trade, Morocco will need to double down on regulatory reforms to improve its business climate. Admittedly, Rabat has made encouraging recent progress. Strengthened anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing legislation, regulations and penalties notably saw Morocco removed from the Financial Action Task Force’s grey list last February, providing a significant boon to investor confidence, while digital streamlining of bureaucracy and banking system reforms have improved the business and investment environments.
Yet significant challenges remain. According to the US State Department, anti-corruption laws targeting government officials are insufficiently implemented, while analysts and local media have criticised the inadequate controls to curb widespread, development-hampering corruption that contributed to Morocco falling seven places in Transparency International’s 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index. Beyond corruption, lingering rule of law issues represent perhaps the greatest hindrance to investor confidence and growth.
As Moroccan economist Rachid Aourraz rightly posited, the country must implement “greater protection of property rights” – particularly crucial for weakly-enforced intellectual property rights – as well as judicial reforms. In parallel, the Government must ensure that its low-tax industrial free zones do not attract new investment and industries at the expense of black-market growth.
Finally, Rabat will need to facilitate greater collaboration between regional governments, the banking industry and private sector investors to deliver on the commitments outlined in its recently-unveiled “roadmap" for optimising the national business environment – a wide-ranging attempt to create 500,000 jobs and attract €45 billion by 2026 using a territorial approach to development.
With the right safeguards in place, Morocco can accelerate the development of its future-proof industries, capitalising on its potential to become a key, trustworthy export partner for the EU and Africa. The green hydrogen sector captures its emerging vision, but Rabat has wider industrial innovation ambitions, with its model of cross-sector collaboration supporting the sustainability, productivity and security of its growing economy.
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