Morocco's BMCE Bank of Africa is partnering with China to build the Tanger Tech Mohammed VI, an industrial city expected to create 100,000 jobs and attract investments worth $10 billion, the bank's president told Reuters Tuesday. After signing a memorandum of understanding, in April, with engineering company China Communications Construction (CCCC) to build the city, BMCE will help «finance and develop» the project, BMCE Bank President and CEP Othmane Benjelloun told the British news agency. Benjelloun explained that the first phase of the project has started and that investors will have the «first plot» delivered to them by the beginning of the year, the same source reported. The Tanger Tech city will help the Moroccan bank further strengthen its ties with China, Benjelloun said, adding that he sees «Shanghai as an entry point of [the bank's] Asian strategy». «We will examine our priorities with our investors and partners keeping in mind that reinforcing relations between Asian countries and the African continent remains our ultimate goal», he told Reuters. Earlier in July, the head of the northern Tangier-Tetouan-Alhoceima region Ilyas El Omari told the same source that the Tanger Tech Mohammed VI city will be built in the span of three phases after a Chinese group withdrew from the project. In 2018, Washington-based media company National Public Radio (NPR) revealed that Morocco's «Tech City» had been abandoned by the Chinese Haite Group. El Omari «obliquely admitted there are problems with Haite and explained that there was a disagreement between Morocco and the Chinese company over who would own the city», wrote NPR. For the record, in March 2017 King Mohammed VI presided a ceremony attended by Li Biao, the CEO of the Chinese Haite Group who announced the building of a city and industrial zones that will be designed to host 100 Chinese companies and generate investments.
