Editor’s Note: Amanda Chen is a Research Fellow at the ChinaMed Project of the Torino World Affairs Institute (T.wai).  ChinaMed’s primary research objective is to analyze the impact of the rise of China on the wider Mediterranean region, emphasizing the evolving economic, diplomatic, and security relationships between Beijing and the countries of North Africa, the Middle East, and Southern Europe.  Check out their 2025 Report China’s Energy Strategy: The Case of North Africa, which offers an excellent overview of Beijing’s green diplomacy in the countries of Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, and Morocco.

By Hafed Al-Ghwell, Senior Fellow and Director, North Africa, Mediterranean, and the Sahel Program

The convergence of Rabat’s green ambition and Chinese technological know-how fostered a growing Sino-Moroccan partnership aimed at bolstering Beijing’s energy resilience while accelerating the Kingdom’s path toward decarbonization. As the conflict in Iran continues to test global resilience, Chinese renewable projects in Morocco retain prospective value, but remain structurally limited to temper Rabat’s vulnerability to Gulf energy disruptions. Despite these constraints, Chinese firms embedded in the local ecosystem are well-positioned to benefit from Morocco’s emergence as a critical node in the rerouting of global trade.

A Growing Green Partnership

Morocco was the first African country to join the BRI in 2017. Since then, Chinese FDI in the Kingdom increased by over 61%, reaching 513.3 billion USD in 2023. This rapid expansion was mainly driven not by traditional development finance but private actors aligning their overseas strategy with Beijing’s new national priorities: the globalization of its renewable energy industry and the consolidation of the green value chain, from mineral extraction to the manufacturing of electric vehicles and batteries.

Source: PRC Ministry of Finance; data compiled and elaborated by ChinaMed. Also accessible via https://www.chinamed.it/chinamed-data/north-africa/morocco.

In this context, Morocco emerged as an attractive destination for Chinese firms leading the green transition. Beijing maintains major stakes in the Kingdom’s renewables infrastructure, including the Noor solar power farm in Ouarzazate – the world’s largest concentrated photovoltaic plant – and a wind turbine blades factory in Nador for export and domestic needs. These strategic investments positioned Chinese companies as key players in Rabat’s path toward decarbonization.

The Kingdom’s world-leading phosphate reserves – a key component of EV batteries – and its integrated automotive ecosystem spearheaded by industry giants Stellantis in Kenitra and Renault in Tangiers, largely facilitated the arrival of Chinese EV and battery producers. These new players benefitted from Morocco’s established position as Africa’s top car manufacturer, its logistical infrastructure connecting factories to the Tanger Med Port through the Al Boraq high-speed rail, and export networks to the European market.

For its part, Rabat implemented a supportive policy framework to facilitate synergies between state agencies and foreign actors. While the 2020 Draft Law No 40-19 empowered local authorities with unprecedented autonomy in the planning of renewable projects, the 2022 Investment Charter increased the Kingdom’s attractiveness by providing territorial investment premiums. Tanger Tech City, an industrial free zone co-developed by SATT and the state-owned China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), emerged as a preferred destination for Chinese companies, securing investments from battery producers BTR and Shinzoom, alongside other industry leaders in EV components.

From a Chinese point of view, nearshoring parts of its EV production capacity to Morocco may act as a potential avenue for circumventing trade restrictions from the European Union and the U.S., with both of which Rabat enjoys free trade agreements. Yet, the mere increase in output and domestic added-value does not automatically translate to local value creation, and could generate popular resentment. As such, with the deepening of the Sino-Moroccan green partnership, local sourcing requirements should be included in investment negotiations to foster technological linkages and spillovers that can meaningfully advance Rabat’s national priorities and decarbonization objectives.

However, these industrial gains unfold within a geopolitical context where Morocco’s persisting energy vulnerability and China’s ongoing reliance on Gulf supply routes remain unresolved.

In the Shadow of the Iran War: Limitations and Opportunities

The significance of Sino-Moroccan cooperation in green transition industries must be assessed against rising geopolitical instability. As the Iran War reshapes China’s calculations in the Middle East and North Africa, this partnership is simultaneously framed as a tool for enhancing energy resilience and constrained by structural dependencies. Rabat’s green energy trajectory, while strategically valuable, does not yet provide its domestic market or Beijing with structural equivalents to Gulf imports. Yet, Morocco’s consolidation as a regional hub may secure it a privileged position in the rerouting of global trade through Africa, especially with regard to Chinese green value chains.

Despite Rabat’s ambition to become a net exporter of renewable energy, including green hydrogen and its derivatives, it continues to rely heavily on imported coal, oil, and gas for 90% of its energy needs. Data collected by the IEA in 2022 shows that while the share of renewables in the country’s electricity generation had reached 17% of total output, it nevertheless accounted for a mere 8.17% of final consumption. This gap highlights a persistent mismatch between production and consumption. Even if large-scale projects such as the Chinese-built Noor solar plant already produce enough energy to “power more than a million homes,” electricity remains expensive in Ouarzazate, as outdated, hydrocarbon-oriented grids limit the transmission of solar energy to local communities.

These structural limits compound Morocco’s energy vulnerability in the war amid rising oil costs and deteriorating balances. Although to a lesser degree, China’s green strategy will also be affected – depending on the war’s duration – as its renewable ventures either stall or slow down in partner countries absorbing the long-term costs of the conflict from the Gulf to North Africa. As such, for Beijing, incentives to deepen its green cooperation with Rabat during the war represent less a shift from Gulf projects or interests, but the consolidation of a growing partnership amid a constellation of strategic investments in the region to multiply energy sources and enhance its own resilience. In this sense, Morocco functions as a complementary node within a broader Chinese strategy of risk diversification.

Finally, as the current crisis continues to accelerate the trend of rerouting through the Cape of Good Hope, perceived to be safer than the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea, Tanger Med stands out as among the few African ports able to capitalize on the opportunity. Thanks to its massive container capacity and hinterland connections, the port also serves as a strategic asset for the Chinese companies operating in the nearby Tech City. As a flagship BRI project, the Tech City not only bolsters Rabat’s rising posture in global connectivity by seamlessly integrating logistics with industrial capacity. It may also allow Beijing to maintain some degree of supply chain fluidity amid the volatility of traditional trade corridors and safeguard its leading role in green value chains.

Conclusion

By leveraging its centrality between continents, actively expanding top-tier logistical infrastructure, and attracting foreign investments, Morocco has successfully positioned itself as an essential link for China’s BRI – all while maintaining its foreign policy of strategic multipolarity. In this context, the alignment between Rabat’s green ambition and Beijing’s lead in renewable technologies fostered a steadily growing partnership where Chinese firms are playing a key role in Morocco’s new energy industries.

While the Iran War provides further incentives to bolster the existing cooperation, Sino-Moroccan renewable projects remain constrained by Rabat’s structural dependence on hydrocarbon imports and outdated electricity grids not yet able to redistribute clean energy to the rest of the country or export it at the current stage. As such, the development of energy resilience in the bilateral relationship retains immense value but may be tempered by Rabat’s vulnerability to Gulf disruptions and price inflations that may persist even after the conflict.

Yet, as the logic of strategic redundancy replaces that of simple efficiency in supply chains, Tanger Med and the Tech City will increasingly function as critical nodes in global trade. Chinese green technology firms embedded in the local ecosystem are uniquely positioned to capture the dividends of Morocco’s ascendancy in regional and global connectivity.