Morocco to Build Large Desalination Plant in Dakhla

The seawater desalination project comes in the context of significant deficits in Morocco’s water reservoirs.

A group of French businessmen visited Dakhla on Tuesday and held a meeting with local officials to discuss investment opportunities in the southern Moroccan city. 

The director of the Regional Investment Center (CRI) of Dakhla, Mounir Houari, told the group of French businessmen of the Moroccan government’s plans to construct a large desalination plant to supply irrigation water to 5,000 hectares of crops.

According to local sources quoted in converging reports, the new desalination plant will be built in Dajla, an area that will also “have two logistics platforms -the Bir Ganduz and El Guerguarat (of 35 hectares each), a 900-megawatt wind farm, the Dakhla Atlantic port, and a West Africa Free Zone attached to the port.”

The French group’s visit, which is scheduled to extend across the Dakhla-Oued Eddahab and Souss-Massa region from October 26 to 31, is aiming to develop and support economic and trade relations between Morocco and France.

Recently, several foreign delegations visited Dakhla as part of their interest in business opportunities in the region.  

In June, a delegation of Arab ambassadorstraveled to Dakhla to explore the city's business opportunities. The delegations included ambassadors from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Yemen. 

Additionally, a delegation from the Young Democrats of America paid a working visit in April to Dakhla, southern Morocco. The visit sought to explore business opportunities in the region, as well as to discuss US-Morocco cooperation.

In 2020, Morocco announced the launch of construction in Casablanca of the largest seawater desalination plant in Africa. 
The seawater desalination project comes in the context of significant deficits inMorocco’s water reservoirs. In July the national average dam filling rate was 45%, down from an already low 54% in September 2019.

source: moroccoworldnews by amal-el-attaq