The French manufacturer and distributor of sportswear and equipment intends to quintuple its production in Morocco. The repeated international transport crises experienced by the global economy since the Covid-19 crisis are playing into the Kingdom's hands.

A number of European operators, some of whom had been relocating their production to South-East Asia for several decades, are starting to review their global industrial facilities in view of the explosion in sea freight costs, which is becoming increasingly prolonged with each geostrategic crisis.

This, explains Challenge magazine, is similar to what has been happening in the Red Sea over the past few months due to attacks by Yemeni Houthi rebels on merchant ships heading for the Suez Canal, forcing shipping companies to take a much longer and more costly alternative route via southern Africa. This constraint led to delays in cargo deliveries and widespread cost overruns.

"Among the global principals now looking at Morocco with Chimène's eyes, or returning to it after having looked away, is the French retailer Decathlon, which has just decided to increase the volume of products manufactured in our country fivefold", we read.

In short, after dividing its orders from Moroccan suppliers by five over the last twenty years, which now stand at around 200 million dirhams, the sports goods distributor majority-owned by the Mulliez family is planning to break through the billion dirham barrier again in the short term.

The company relied heavily on Southeast Asia, mainly China, as its main manufacturing base, with four of its own factories, 500 suppliers and four logistics parks*.

"But the new constraints of sea transport and the environmental constraints of a more controlled carbon footprint (which long-distance transport is not conducive to) have made Morocco, and also Tunisia (where the company is already well established), a relocation country on the doorstep of Europe, its main market", points out the weekly.

Challenges thus sees a wind of hope for Moroccan industry, which is seeking to position itself as a serious, reliable, resilient and local partner for European and even American prime contractors.

Nabil Ouzzane