Tangier Showcase for the kingdom

How to reconcile rapid development, quality of life and demographic growth? The five-year plan launched in 2013 is up and running. Failing schools, failing road systems and lack of housing are under particular scrutiny.

Once called ‘Africa’s Little Switzerland’, the capital of the northern province is now closer to India’s Bangalore, with its dynamic industry and free zones that stretch into the hinterland, and its unfettered building and construction.

Since Mohammed VI acceded to the throne on 23rd July 1999, the city, is on a new way. The advent of the king also coincided with new methods of organisation called ‘new public management’. According to him, the city is ‘the showcase of what the sovereign wants the rest of the kingdom to become: a secure, developed, inclusive and integrated country.

In fact, the five-year Tangier-Metropole programme, launched in 2013, is intended to give structure to the sprawling urban area, by regenerating and rearranging the wide boulevards, and also by building a corniche leading to the old port, and bypasses to decongest the main roads. The State has committed 8 billion dirhams to open up the city and improve the living environment of the people living in Tangier; from wastewater to building schools and hospitals, no sector has been left out. The economic impact of this change has been quickly felt. ‘Since 2003, Tangier has become the second industrial city in the country after Casablanca, and the second wealth creator at national level. It is also first in the country for cars and textiles. Tangier Med is in competition with the port of Casablanca, and its hinterland now extends to Senegal and Mauritania’, says Mr Saddiki. Indeed, the textile industry is almost exclusively concentrated in the Tangier-Asilah region, as 87 % of manufacturing plants are located there and account for a quarter of national industrial production (whatever the sector). The exponential development of the Tangier Med area has opened up other prospects for the manufacturing industry, and has created a ‘pull factor’ for employment, boosting high internal migration, mainly from rural areas.

Its strategic, geographic position, not far from the European coast and the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, and also its history of conflict with the rest of the kingdom, have made the city a perfect place for trafficking of all kinds. ‘Because of the opportunities it offers, and particularly in the parallel market, building trade, hotel industry and catering, Tangier is still a nerve centre for money-laundering from all over, says Abderrahman Saddiki. ‘Officially, the share of the parallel economy is estimated at 40% of the real economy in the city. This high percentage has negative effects on the sectorial and territorial restructuring of the country as a whole, as much of the wealth escapes the National Accounts, and therefore taxes, which should, in principle, fill the public coffers and help bring public policies on planning and development to fruition.

This scourge has unfortunately worsened as a result of the Arab Spring.’ In fact, immigration routes that used to go through Tunisia and Libya have become dangerous, and migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa now try to force their way to Europe by crossing the Straits of Gibraltar. The authorities have been busy working to improve the situation for several years, and the dismissals of senior customs officials in Tangier, and most recently the Chief of Police, Abdellah Belhafid, are proof that Rabat wants to send a strong signal to the traffickers. The king regularly visits the region and on each visit checks the project’s progress. Sitting at the crossroads of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, and gateway to Africa, Tangier is anchored in the kingdom through the will of a sovereign who has grasped that in an era of globalised economies, this city built into the rocks is a major asset for the country.