EIB plans to earmark hundreds of millions of euros to fund projects in Morocco in 2012

The European Investment Bank (EIB) plans to earmark hundreds of millions of euros to fund several projects in Morocco in 2012, the Bank’s vice-president Philippe De Fontaine Vive said.

Morocco and the EIB are discussing a series of agreements which will be signed in 2012 “with the amount of several millions of euros that will probably turn Morocco into the first country southern of the Mediterranean financed by the EIB,” he told MAP on the sidelines of the presentation of the Bank’s 2011 annual report.

He recalled the agreements signed earlier this year, namely the loan of 35 million euros from the EIB to the BMCE bank as part of the financing of the Renault plant in Tangiers, and that of 200 million euros granted to the “Office chérifien des phosphates”.

“We are about to conclude a loan for the purification program in Morocco, and we also finalizing a program for funding rural roads,” he added.

He also mentioned the EIB’s support for science and technology parks in Morocco, as well as for the project of the first solar plant in Ouarzazate. (MAP)