Chinese auto part manufacturer inaugurates first factory in Morocco

Staff members work at an aluminum wheel factory of the CITIC Dicastal Co., Ltd., at the Kenitra Atlantic Free Zone in Morocco's Kenitra on June 26, 2019. The CITIC Dicastal Co., Ltd., Chinese manufacturer of aluminum auto parts, inaugurated its first factory in Morocco's Kenitra on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Chen Binjie)

The CITIC Dicastal Co., Ltd., Chinese manufacturer of aluminum auto parts, inaugurated its first factory in Morocco's Kenitra on Wednesday.

The site, which required an investment of 350 million euros (398.04 million U.S. dollars), comes to crown the framework agreement and the investment agreement recently signed by Morocco and China, for the implementation of a aluminum wheel production unit at the Kenitra Atlantic Free Zone, with an annual production capacity of 6 million units.

At the inauguration ceremony, Morocco's Minister of Industry, Investment, Trade and Digital Economy Moulay Hafid Elalamy said that the factory is a model for strengthening industrial cooperation between the two countries.

Thanks to the project, more than 100 Moroccan employees have gone to China for skills training. "We look forward to the continued development of large-scale cooperation between the two countries," he said.

Wang Jiong, vice chairman and general manager of China CITIC Dicastal Co., Ltd., said that the factory is an important practice for the company to optimize the layout of global production bases, which will help promote the development of the Moroccan automobile industry and economic and trade exchanges between the two countries.

Li Li, Chinese ambassador to Morocco, said that the official launch of the project indicates that the two countries will have great potential in economic and trade exchanges and capacity cooperation in the future.