Published by the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center · September 2024
Morocco spent the last quarter century pursuing one of the more sustained modernization programmes in the region: heavy investment in infrastructure and renewable capacity, and a deliberate push to enter global value chains rather than remain adjacent to them. Automotive and aerospace assembly, phosphates and fertilizers, and a growing renewable base are the visible results.
This paper traces that trajectory and sets it against what has not moved. The socioeconomic challenges — employment, regional disparity, the gap between headline industrial success and household outcomes — have proved considerably more stubborn than the industrial policy, and they are what determine whether the transformation holds.
It is a useful case for anyone assessing industrial policy in emerging markets, because Morocco is far enough along to show both what the strategy delivers and where it runs out.
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