Law 10-20, adopted in 2020, opened defense manufacturing to licensed private firms. Armored vehicles now come off a line in Berrechid. At Benslimane, Lockheed Martin and its partners are building a maintenance center for F-16 and C-130 aircraft. SGZID, a joint company of ALEM and MEDZ, holds the concession for two defense industrial zones. This brief asks whether these first plants can become a lasting industry. It looks at how military orders can bring local suppliers in, and at what could hold them back.
Key takeaways
- The Royal Armed Forces are the industry’s main customer, and their orders will shape it. Opening them step by step to local firms gives new suppliers steady volume. Routine goods such as uniforms or vehicle parts are a natural start, once suppliers meet military standards.
- Maintenance offers the most reliable demand. Imported aircraft and vehicles stay in service for thirty years or more, and their upkeep costs more than their purchase. The Benslimane center could later serve other African air forces that fly the C-130.
- Decisions on the Casablanca shipyard concession and the next ship purchases will fall within the same few years. Uncrewed vessels and maritime sensors are the clearest naval opening for Moroccan electronics and composites firms.
- Small drones built from civil components suit young Moroccan firms. The same airframes serve farms and mines between military orders. A Moroccan design, even a basic one, can be modified and exported without foreign permission.
- For most civil suppliers, defense will remain a small market. Orders come in hundreds or thousands of units, and qualification costs the same whatever the contract size. Grouping orders over several years would bring more firms in.
- Engineers and bank credit may both be hard to secure. Defense firms recruit from the same pool as automotive and aerospace, and emigration draws on it too. French suppliers met reluctant banks, and Moroccan firms should expect the same questions.
- A small defense-industrial unit within an existing institution could connect military requirements to industrial planning. It would give firms a defined channel to present technologies and gain access to testing.
