Sea lanes, ports and the infrastructure beneath the sea now carry ever greater economic value, and recent disruptions to global shipping and to undersea cables have shown how much modern economies depend on them. GGSF Policy Brief N°10 examines what a Morocco maritime strategy looks like as the sea takes on greater weight in the country’s economic and security thinking.
What follows are the brief’s key takeaways. The full analysis — the options, the points of vigilance and the recommendations — is in the document.
Key takeaways on Morocco maritime strategy
- Geography has shaped Moroccan statecraft for centuries. Morocco is the only African country facing both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, with over 3,500 kilometers of coastline. Sultan Mohammed III opened it to Atlantic trade from 1760.
- The port programme is the modern parallel to that opening. Tanger Med leads the National Port Strategy 2030 as the leading container port in the Mediterranean and Africa. Nador West Med opens in late 2026; Dakhla Atlantique passed sixty percent completion in mid-2026.
- The Royal Atlantic Initiative turns coastline into a connectivity offer. Launched in November 2023, it offers landlocked Sahel states Atlantic access through Moroccan roads, railways and ports. It also supports Morocco’s southern provinces.
- Morocco’s maritime zones are defined in law and its navy is modernising. Laws 37-17 and 38-17 of 2020 set the territorial sea, an exclusive economic zone to 200 nautical miles and a continental shelf to 350. The Royal Moroccan Navy operates the FREMM frigate Mohammed VI.
- The blue economy rests on several sectors at once. The World Bank estimates coastal areas generate close to 60 percent of GDP and half of national employment. Fisheries sustain 700,000 jobs; 1.4 million tons in 2024 makes Morocco Africa’s leading fish producer.
- Morocco is becoming a node that links continents. Its grid is the only one in Africa connected to Europe, and the African Atlantic Gas Pipeline runs partly offshore. Fiber-optic cables joining Europe, Africa and the Americas land on Moroccan coasts.
- The rules of the maritime domain are expanding, and Morocco is inside them. Morocco’s maritime zones rest on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and shipping on the International Maritime Organization.
- The seabed is emerging as the next frontier. Uncrewed underwater vehicles, advanced sensors and AI are expanding seabed awareness, as NATO’s Baltic Sentry and the UK’s Atlantic Bastion show. Which technologies will define the decade is not yet clear.
What to hold in view
The maritime domain is becoming a central part of national economic life, and Morocco’s place at the meeting point of Atlantic and Mediterranean flows is unlikely to diminish. What will distinguish outcomes is continuity: planning for the long life cycle of ports, cables and pipelines, building redundancy where practical, and keeping close watch on a more complex maritime environment.
