- Bank’s investment in Morocco reached €530 million in 14 projects in 2022
- Record investment of €360 million in the private sector and €170 million in the green economy
- Fifty-eight per cent of all investments in Morocco in 2022 had a gender and inclusion focus
According to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) news release on February 16, 2023, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) more than doubled its investment in Morocco last year, extending more than €528 million in finance to 14 projects, up from €211 million in 2021.
It delivered record investment of €360 million in the private sector and €170 million in support of Morocco’s green economy. Fifty-eight per cent of all investments had a gender and inclusion focus.
Supporting the country’s transition to a low-carbon economy, the Bank co-financed the repowering of the Koudia Al Baida wind farm in the north of the country with a senior loan of up to €44 million. This marked the first wind farm repowering project in Africa.
The Bank invested a MAD 1 billion issue by the City of Agadir, the capital of Morocco’s Souss-Massa region. Agadir was thus the first Moroccan city to join the EBRD Green Cities programme.
Helping to unlock the economic potential of Morocco’s Oriental Region and improving regional access to infrastructure, the EBRD extended additional financing of €100 million for the construction of the Nador West Med (NWM) port. The Bank also provided a technical cooperation package worth €1 million to assess NWM’s potential role in the hydrogen value chain.
The EBRD delivered 88 SME advisory projects in 2022, most of them in the regions outside Casablanca and Rabat.
In 2022, the Bank held its Annual General Meeting for the first time in Morocco, under the theme, “Responding to Challenges in a Turbulent World”.
Continuing its support for the southern and eastern Mediterranean (SEMED) region, the Bank made a record €2.4 billion of new investments in 50 projects in 2022, of which 70 per cent were in the private sector and 42 per cent were in the green economy. Half of the projects had a gender inclusion component.
The region also continued to benefit from strong donor support, including from the EU, the EBRD SEMED Multi-Donor Account,* the Green Climate Fund, the Global Concessional Financing Facility and other bilateral and multilateral donors.
Overall, the EBRD delivered a record €13.1 billion in investment to its regions in 2022, amid an extremely challenging global economic environment in the wake of Russia’s war on Ukraine – confirming its countercyclical role in supporting its clients and the economies in which it invests.
The 2022 result was significantly higher than 2021’s total Annual Bank Investment (ABI) of €10.4 billion and the previous record of €11 billion in 2020 in response to the economic shock caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Bank, which is strongly committed to the global climate agenda, also announced in December that it had fulfilled its pledge to align all of its activities with the goals of the Paris Agreement on limiting climate change.
EBRD green economy financing reached 50 per cent of total business volume in 2022, at more than €6 billion against the previous record of €5.4 billion set in 2021.
