The government of Morocco has unveiled the new Morocco Mining Plan 2021-2030. Minister of Energy, Mines and Environment, Aziz Rabbah presented the plan and said it is an update of Morocco’s developmental strategy in place for 2013-2025
The plan’s aim is to enhance the mining sector’s performance and its economic and social impacts. It will address a variety of challenges the mining sector in morocco currently faces, from discovering new deposits, growing the added value of the extracted materials, to ensuring sustainable development of the sector.
Rabbah believes that the new plan could “make the mining sector a driving force for responsible and sustainable development at the local, regional, and national levels, combining good governance, economic integration and the respect of the environment.”
Strategic pillars
“We are discussing a new phase and a new agreement 2021-2030 concerning the exploitation and valuation of natural resources, especially minerals. The plan was conceived in a cooperative manner with all the contributors via workshops, dialogues, and negotiations over the course of a year and a half,” said the minister.
The Morocco Mining Plan has been developed along four strategic pillars which includes; developing a network of competitive stakeholders, reforming how the sector’s institutions are organized, ensuring the mining sector’s positive social impact sustainable development, and altering Morocco’s legislative framework to make it better suited to the county’s “new ambitions” in the sector.
Rabbah exlined that the government took into consideration of course the strategy that started in 2013, including its results whether positive or negative. The new mining plan notes that Morocco has 70% of the world’s phosphate reserves, in addition to Morocco’s consistently high rankings in various mineral exploitation efforts.
Morocco’s mining sector
Morocco ranks 19th worldwide and 1st in Africa for silver exploitation, 7th worldwide and 2nd in Africa for fluorite, 3rd worldwide and 1st in Africa for barite, and 11th worldwide and 3rd in Africa for cobalt. The mining sector currently contributes between 7% and 10% to Morocco’s gross domestic product, makes up approximately 21.7% of the country’s exports, and positively impacts national transport and port activity.
The department stresses that in order to secure sustainable regional development, particularly within the context of towns that have developed parallel to newly erected mines, “it is essential to integrate the ‘post-mining’ component from the start of any mining project.”
