His Majesty King Mohammed VI, may God assist Him, proceeded, on Friday, to the launch of the construction works of the new port of Safi, a strategic project that comes to strengthen the infrastructure dedicated to national maritime transport.

This large-scale project, which will be carried out in three phases, is part of the national port strategy for the 2030 horizon, which sets as objectives the valorisation of Morocco's comparative advantages, the strengthening of the Kingdom's economic attractiveness, the conquest of a share of the international maritime trade market between the Mediterranean basin, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and the creation of high-performance ports, engines of regional development and essential actors in the positioning of Morocco as a logistics platform.

Located 15 km south of Safi, the future port, whose first phase mobilises investments of around 4 billion dirhams, aims to accompany the energy sector and the chemical industry of the region and to contribute to the development of the transport of large bulk related to energy and the mineral industry.

It will also meet the coal supply needs of the new thermal power plant of the National Office of Electricity and Water (ONEE), both in its first and second phases, just as it will offer a significant and extensible port capacity to cover future needs in import and export traffic of the OCP Group and other traffic in a third phase.

Indeed, the first phase of this new port, which will be ready in August 2017, will meet the needs of the new ONEE thermal power plant, estimated at 3.5 million tonnes of coal per year.

This flagship project will also consolidate the dynamic of economic development of the region and will give a new impetus to the urban requalification of the city of Safi by the conversion of the Safi-Ville port into a commercial and cruise port.

For sustainable development of the region, several measures are being implemented to mitigate and compensate for the negative impacts related to the construction and operation of the future port of Safi, in order to allow the structure to be inserted into its immediate environment. We will cite the creation of a new beach backed to the north of the new port, which will constitute a leisure space for surfers and will protect the adjacent cliff.

Furthermore, the displacement of phosphate and derivative traffic activities to the new port - in its second phase - will contribute to the improvement of the environmental, security, and health framework of the city of Safi.

The Safi port project is also accompanied by structuring developments for the city and the adjacent regions, notably the Marrakech region, which will henceforth have a significant maritime opening.

A true accelerator for the launch of multiple projects at the regional level, this new project should generate more than 750 direct jobs during the construction phase and more than 180 during the operation phase. It should establish the city of Safi, the capital of the Doukkala Abda region, as a major hub of economic and social development, likely to have a ripple effect on other communities in the region.