 Morocco has put in place "an ambitious development plan" comprising a hundred projects in the Sahara provinces for the period 2015-2021 which has turned this territory into "a hub of investment and growth", underlined on Sunday Spanish newspapers "La Povincia" and "El Dia".
"Morocco announced in 2015 the largest investment program in history of the Sahara," said the Spanish publications in a media coverage on the development process in the southern provinces of the Kingdom over the past years.
Morocco has allocated some 6,600 million euros for the construction of the new highway between the cities of Tiznit and Dakhla, universities, renewable energy parks, airports, desalination plants, hospitals and the mega-project of the Atlantic port of Dakhla, co-financed by the United States and which will guarantee maritime links with the Canary Islands, wrote the publications issued in the Canary Islands.
With this infrastructure, Morocco is multiplying its efforts to accelerate the socio-economic development of these southern regions in order to consolidate their position as an "investment hub" and strengthen their status of autonomy, said the author of the coverage, enumerating the sectoral plans developed in all Saharan cities.
According to "La Provincia" and "El Dia", Morocco is counting on the blue economy as an engine of development, growth and innovation for the Southern Provinces, which constitutes an opportunity for Canarian companies, with a experience in the field, to gain a foothold in the Sahara as part of their internationalization strategy.
The National Office for Electricity and Drinking Water (ONEE) announced that the new Laâyoune seawater desalination station will have a production capacity of 26,000 m3/day, which will be added to the 26,000 m3/day of the first station to bring its production capacity to 62,000 m3/day, the publications recalled.
In Dakhla, another desalination unit will be set up to irrigate 5,000 hectares of arable farmland for a total budget of 110 million euros, the two Canarian newspapers reported.
In terms of renewable energy, the city of Tarfaya is home to the largest wind energy production park in Africa which amounts to 300 MW, the goal is to provide electricity to 1.5 million households, underlined the Spanish newspapers, assuring that the mega-park of Tarfaya, which employs around 50 people and has reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 900,000 tonnes per year, places the region of Laâyoune Sakia El Hamra at the forefront of this type of energy worldwide.
Morocco has four large solar power plants and eleven wind farms, which makes the country the champion of renewable energy in the continent, the same sources said.
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