Tanger-med
Encyclopedia
Tanger-Med is a cargo and passenger port located about 40 km east of Tangier
Tangier
Tangier, also Tangiers is a city in northern Morocco with a population of about 700,000 . It lies on the North African coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel...

, Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

. It is one of the largest ports on the Mediterranean and in Africa by capacity and went into service in July 2007. Its initial capacity was 3.5 million shipment containers.

Overview

The Tangier-Med Project will contain the biggest port in Africa. The project is a strategic priority of the Moroccan government for the economic and social development of the North Morocco region. It is part of the economic policy orienting Morocco towards exports, based on eight clearly identified export sectors, with particular emphasis on the free trade agreement with the European Union to be implemented by 2012.

Completion of the «Tangier-Mediterranean» project will have important economic effects in terms of jobs, creation of added value and foreign investment. Its particular position on the Straits of Gibraltar, at the crossing of two major maritime routes, and 15km from the European Union will enable it to serve a market of hundreds of millions of consumers through the industrial and commercial free zones which will be run by well-known private operators. It will also win part of the strong growth market of container transshipment and become the leading hub for cereal transshipment, a facility which is non-existent in the north-west African region at present.

The project will be implemented, coordinated and managed by TMSA, a private company with public prerogatives, operating under an agreement with the State and interacting with the different ministries involved.

The port complex will have important economic effects in terms of jobs, creation of added value and foreign investment. In addition to the economic effects of the operation of the port, there will be important effects resulting from its construction, particularly through foreign investments, and others from the operation of the free zones (direct and indirect added value, direct gains, jobs and foreign investment).

A draft loan contract of $180 mln to fund the expansion works of Tanger-Med port was signed in October 2008 to for building a second deepwater port, dubbed "Tangier Med II", to meet the growing demand for containers treatment at the international level in sea transport. The new port facilities, scheduled to be operational by the second half of 2012, will include two new container terminals with a total length of 2,800 m and an additional nominal capacity of 5 million containers. Final official approval for "Tangier Med II" was received on 7 January 2009, with actual construction started on 17 June 2009.. In November 2010 the European Investment Bank (EIB) signed a loan of €200 million for the extension of the port.

The port is expected to reach full capacity by 2015, and to operate 8 million containers, 7 million passengers, 700,000 trucks, 2 million vehicles, and 10 million MT of oil products.

See also

  • List of deep water ports
  • Tangier
    Tangier
    Tangier, also Tangiers is a city in northern Morocco with a population of about 700,000 . It lies on the North African coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel...

  • Economy of Tangier
    Economy of Tangier
    Tangiers economy is the third biggest of all Moroccan cities, after the economic capital Casablanca and the political capital Rabat.Tangier is Morocco's second most important industrial center after Casablanca. The industrial sectors are diversified: textile, chemical, mechanical, metallurgical and...

  • Port of Algeciras
    Port of Algeciras
    The Port of Algeciras is the port and harbour of Algeciras, city in the province of Cádiz, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain.It is 7th busiest container port in the continent of Europe and 32nd in the world with a trade volume of 3,324,310 TEUs in 2008 and 9th busiest port by cargo in...

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