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Morocco · Transport and logistics

Market study: transport and logistics in Morocco

What the public statistics measure, and where they mislead

The flows are Moroccan, the means are not. Tanger Med handles more containers than all the national ports agency ports combined, yet 93.6% of them merely pass through. International road haulage depends on that single crossing point for 94.4% of its tonnage. The rail operator spends 1.34 dirham for every dirham it collects, while carrying 59.5% phosphate. This study measures each mode against what the statistics actually publish, names the 29 places where those statistics mislead, and opens the horizon to 2030 in bounded, reproducible paths.

Country
Morocco
Sector
Transport and logistics
Length
113 pages
Publication
Forthcoming
What you get

The data is free. The verification is not.

The Moroccan statistical yearbook can be downloaded by anyone. What cannot be downloaded is knowing where it misleads, and what it does not allow you to conclude. That is what is sold here.

🔍

You can check everything without opening the source

The 37 tables of the statistical chapter are reproduced at the end of the document across 24 pages, row by row, with their units, their vintages and the reading caveat attached to each. Any figure in the study can be traced to its source row without leaving the PDF. That is what separates a study from a compilation.

🧨

29 defects in the official statistics, and what they cost

Each one is named together with the false conclusion it would have produced. Tonnage by shipping line collapses 76.3% in the source; at constant perimeter it rises 12.3%, and the sign flips. The most quoted row of the container chapter is not a container tonnage. The top-five airports box has its labels shifted by one rank. None of this is flagged by the source.

🛑

What the study refuses to compute, and why

It refuses to compute a market share from a ratio between revenue and value added. It refuses to reconstruct a rail deficit from two incomplete lines. It refuses to use a column the source publishes with decimals on a count of vehicles. Each refusal is an error a rushed study would have made and billed for.

📐

Projections you can redo and contradict

6 paths out to 2030, constant rates applied to a published base. No hidden model, no false precision: the rate, the base and both bounds are printed, and the bounds are declared as our own conventions. A reader who finds them too wide substitutes their own and redoes the calculation in one line.

⚖️

The rules read in the text, not in the press

Access to the port-chain professions is taken article by article from the Customs Code, with the point no market data gives you: the licence is PERSONAL and revocable without compensation. Buying a customs brokerage does not guarantee keeping the right to operate if the licensed individuals leave.

🏢

Company figures read in the published accounts

No company figure comes from a press article, and the page of the financial report is cited for each one. Of the five values we cross-checked while preparing this edition, four press write-ups were inaccurate, one of them by 47%.

Contents

What the study contains, part by part

15 parts, 242 sections, 113 pages. Click a part to see the detail of what it covers.

  • How current the figures in this study are
  • The figures that sum up the market
  • The argument of this study, in one page
  • What this study does not say
  • A mid-sized branch, not a giant
  • Volumes rise, prices fall
  • Why this study computes no market share
  • A network of 43 ports, 14 open to trade and 11 profiled here
  • What comes in is bulk
  • Ro-Ro, the real face of cross-border flows
  • Two ports carry seven tenths of the tonnage
  • The 5 ports rail actually serves
  • Ro-Ro plays out on three quays
  • and 10 further sections on the same pattern
  • What the "Tanger Med" row actually covers
  • 93.6% of the containers are only passing through
  • One port outweighs all the others combined
  • A fleet that has grown 46.4% in twelve years
  • The only road tonnage the country publishes
  • Two oddities in the network table, and what they are worth
  • Paved surface: a twelvefold gap
  • Where vehicles are sold, and where drivers are trained
  • The network is not lengthening, it is being upgraded
  • and 19 further sections on the same pattern
  • A mineral railway
  • An operator that loses money
  • Passengers carry the railway, not freight
  • Multimodality remains an intention
  • Fewer staff for more traffic
  • A static fleet, and shrinking electric traction
  • and 19 further sections on the same pattern
  • Two national totals, and what separates them
  • A hub that is not quite one
  • 64.1% of passengers fly on a foreign airline
  • Two airports concentrate movements, and two tables contradict each other
  • Four years of air traffic catch-up
  • Twenty-five airports, eight that matter
  • and 8 further sections on the same pattern
  • The imbalance that drives empty returns
  • 33.0% of ANP port tonnage serves a single industry
  • Chain: containers
  • Chain: fertiliser
  • Chain: hydrocarbons
  • Chain: coal & petcoke
  • and 7 further sections on the same pattern
  • A 76% collapse that did not happen
  • A tiny national fleet
  • The passenger strait is being reshaped
  • The fleet confirms what the tonnage figures suggested
  • Marsa Maroc, the country's leading port operator
  • The two leading port players are linked by capital
  • and 26 further sections on the same pattern
  • The method, explained without jargon
  • The low scenario, and what would trigger it
  • The central scenario, extending the observed pace
  • The high scenario, with port tonnage as a counterpoint
  • Outlook: Port tonnage, national ports agency perimeter
  • Outlook: Tanger Med container traffic, in TEU
  • and 5 further sections on the same pattern
  • The 29 defects found in the source, and what they would have produced
  • Four measured dependencies
  • A fifth risk: the source itself
  • An equipment dependency that is rarely quantified
  • Barriers to entry, sub-sector by sub-sector
  • Barrier to entry: port handling
  • and 6 further sections on the same pattern
  • Three positions open, one to avoid
  • Two positions the data points to directly
  • Decision grid: what to verify before entering
  • The four modes compared on what actually decides
  • Summary: maritime and ports
  • Summary: road transport
  • and 4 further sections on the same pattern
  • What this part verifies, and how
  • The customs broker: a profession closed by law
  • What the approval costs once obtained
  • Road transport: the text, and what we could not read
  • What regulation adds to the measured barriers
  • How this study was built
  • How to redo this study at the next edition
  • Freight traffic by port, 2024
  • Port tonnage by product, 2024
  • Commercial passenger traffic by airport, 2024
  • Tonnage carried by shipping line, 2023 and 2024
  • and 17 further sections on the same pattern
  • 8-1 · Longueur des routes construites et revêtues par région
  • 8-2 · Réseau routier total
  • 8-3 · Voies Express
  • 8-4 · Patrimoine des Ouvrages d'arts
  • 8-5 · Evolution de l'effectif des véhicules en circulation selon le genre et la catégorie
  • 8-6 · Immatriculation des véhicules selon le genre et la catégorie
  • and 31 further sections on the same pattern

What the study contains, in detail

The contents below are those of the document on sale, part by part, with its actual length. The table and chart that follow are taken from it as they stand. Enough to judge the depth before paying anything.

Detailed contents

  1. 1Summary and key figures2 pages
    • How current the figures in this study are
    • The figures that sum up the market
    • The argument of this study, in one page
    • What this study does not say
  2. 2The real weight of the market1 pages
    • A mid-sized branch, not a giant
    • Volumes rise, prices fall
    • Why this study computes no market share
  3. 3Shipping, the backbone8 pages
    • A network of 43 ports, 14 open to trade and 11 profiled here
    • What comes in is bulk
    • Ro-Ro, the real face of cross-border flows
    • Two ports carry seven tenths of the tonnage
    • The 5 ports rail actually serves
    • Ro-Ro plays out on three quays
  4. 4Tanger Med, a case of its own2 pages
    • What the "Tanger Med" row actually covers
    • 93.6% of the containers are only passing through
    • One port outweighs all the others combined
  5. 5Road: fleet, network, renewal11 pages
    • A fleet that has grown 46.4% in twelve years
    • The only road tonnage the country publishes
    • Two oddities in the network table, and what they are worth
    • Paved surface: a twelvefold gap
    • Where vehicles are sold, and where drivers are trained
    • The network is not lengthening, it is being upgraded
  6. 6Rail and ONCF7 pages
    • A mineral railway
    • An operator that loses money
    • Passengers carry the railway, not freight
    • Multimodality remains an intention
    • Fewer staff for more traffic
    • A static fleet, and shrinking electric traction
  7. 7Air: destination traffic, foreign carriers6 pages
    • Two national totals, and what separates them
    • A hub that is not quite one
    • 64.1% of passengers fly on a foreign airline
    • Two airports concentrate movements, and two tables contradict each other
    • Four years of air traffic catch-up
    • Twenty-five airports, eight that matter
  8. 8Foreign trade, the driver of demand5 pages
    • The imbalance that drives empty returns
    • 33.0% of ANP port tonnage serves a single industry
    • Chain: containers
    • Chain: fertiliser
    • Chain: hydrocarbons
    • Chain: coal & petcoke
  9. 9The market operators10 pages
    • A 76% collapse that did not happen
    • A tiny national fleet
    • The passenger strait is being reshaped
    • The fleet confirms what the tonnage figures suggested
    • Marsa Maroc, the country's leading port operator
    • The two leading port players are linked by capital
  10. 10Outlook to 20304 pages
    • The method, explained without jargon
    • The low scenario, and what would trigger it
    • The central scenario, extending the observed pace
    • The high scenario, with port tonnage as a counterpoint
    • Outlook: Port tonnage, national ports agency perimeter
    • Outlook: Tanger Med container traffic, in TEU
  11. 11Risks and points to watch4 pages
    • The 29 defects found in the source, and what they would have produced
    • Four measured dependencies
    • A fifth risk: the source itself
    • An equipment dependency that is rarely quantified
    • Barriers to entry, sub-sector by sub-sector
    • Barrier to entry: port handling
  12. 12Operational reading: where to position4 pages
    • Three positions open, one to avoid
    • Two positions the data points to directly
    • Decision grid: what to verify before entering
    • The four modes compared on what actually decides
    • Summary: maritime and ports
    • Summary: road transport
  13. 13Access to the port-chain professions: what the texts say6 pages
    • What this part verifies, and how
    • The customs broker: a profession closed by law
    • What the approval costs once obtained
    • Road transport: the text, and what we could not read
    • What regulation adds to the measured barriers
  14. 14Appendices: figure register, sources, method10 pages
    • How this study was built
    • How to redo this study at the next edition
    • Freight traffic by port, 2024
    • Port tonnage by product, 2024
    • Commercial passenger traffic by airport, 2024
    • Tonnage carried by shipping line, 2023 and 2024
  15. 15Full register: the 37 tables of the chapter20 pages
    • 8-1 · Longueur des routes construites et revêtues par région
    • 8-2 · Réseau routier total
    • 8-3 · Voies Express
    • 8-4 · Patrimoine des Ouvrages d'arts
    • 8-5 · Evolution de l'effectif des véhicules en circulation selon le genre et la catégorie
    • 8-6 · Immatriculation des véhicules selon le genre et la catégorie

One table, taken from the document

PortTotal (t)Inbound (t)Outbound (t)Cabotage (t)
Jorf Lasfar40,758,40926,672,67713,598,622487,110
Casablanca30,893,91221,083,8887,942,3021,867,722
Safi ville7,322,7411,979,2705,273,65069,821
Agadir6,865,8793,390,7893,107,760367,330
Mohammadia5,026,9914,920,8281,686104,477
Nador3,636,5602,721,726891,33423,500
Safi Atlantique2,672,7932,672,79300
Laâyoune2,003,062381,9481,537,39583,719
Dakhla677,516677,51600
Tan-Tan50,27622,5448,68319,049
Haut-Commissariat au Plan, Statistical Yearbook of Morocco 2025, chapter VIII, table 8-29.

Goods tonnage by port, 2024

Jorf Lasfar40,758,409Casablanca30,893,912Safi ville7,322,741Agadir6,865,879Mohammadia5,026,991Nador3,636,560Safi Atlantique2,672,793Laâyoune2,003,062
Haut-Commissariat au Plan, Statistical Yearbook of Morocco 2025, chapter VIII, table 8-29. 2 further rows in the table above.

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📄

A free extract, so you can judge for yourself

8 pages taken from the final document, layout included: the key figures, the study's thesis, what it does not say, and the detailed contents of all 15 parts. Enough to check the density and level of detail before paying anything. The extract is offered in the language displayed.

Available at publication

Who it is for

It is written for someone who has to settle a real decision, not to illustrate a slide deck.

🏗️

Logistics and warehousing operators

You are sizing a back-of-port facility and need the tonnage the country actually captures, not the traffic a terminal displays.

🚢

Shipowners, agents and freight forwarders

You are assessing a line or an agency and need volumes by port, by direction and by chain, each with the caveat that belongs to it.

🧭

Advisory and consulting firms

You advise on this destination and want a quantified base you can cite without rebuilding it, every figure traceable to its table row.

🏛️

Investors and lenders

You are reviewing a port or logistics case and need to know which conclusions the public data supports, and which it does not.

Method and sources

Where the figures come from

No figure is put forward without its source and date, and none is retyped into the text: each one is computed from a single register. The same figure therefore cannot differ from one page to the next, nor between the French and the English version. The 37 tables of the statistical chapter are reproduced at the end of the document, row by row, each with its reading caveat: you can check any figure in this study without opening the source. Company figures come from published financial reports, at the page cited, never from a press article.

Haut-Commissariat au Plan Marsa Maroc, annual financial report CTM Group, annual financial report Customs and Indirect Taxation Code Official Bulletin

Our methodology note, which covers our monthly European analyses →

The other market studies

They follow the same method: every figure is sourced and dated, and the source tables are reproduced in the appendix.