Morocco is assembling a battery supply chain an hour from Spain
Copper foil, anodes and cathodes are being built inside one Moroccan industrial zone by Chinese firms. The first phase filled with roughly 30 companies and $3 billion — and it sits inside Europe's free trade agreement.
The Mohammed VI Tanger Tech City covers 2,167 hectares outside Tangier. Since its 2023 launch it has been filling up with Chinese battery materials manufacturers, and the significance is not the individual factories but what they add up to.
Progress against the plan
By February 2025 the first phase — 486 hectares of industrial acceleration zone — was nearly fully occupied, with around 30 international companies signed representing $3 billion in investment.
Roads, utilities and rail connections are progressing, with civil works and service installation on schedule. The project is backed by Morocco's Tangier Med Special Agency, Bank of Africa and China Communications Construction Company, aligned to a 2023–2027 master plan. A 1,220-hectare urban zone designed for 300,000 residents remains in early planning, prioritising smart city technology and renewable integration.
Land allocation delays and investor hesitancy were reported in 2023. Those appear resolved, and the project is tracking toward its 2027 target — helped by proximity to Europe and by tax incentives.
What is actually being built
The specificity matters, because these are not assembly plants. They are the materials layer of a battery supply chain.
| Company | Product | Investment | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hailiang Group | Copper products for EV batteries — tubes, rods, foil | $450m, 30 hectares, 1,800 jobs | Construction from May 2024, completion 2027. Phase 1 copper foil (12,500 t/yr) ahead of schedule, trial production mid-2025 |
| Shinzoom (Hunan Zhongke Electric) | Anodes for lithium-ion batteries | $460m, 20 hectares, 2,000 jobs | Foundations and utilities complete, equipment installation from Q2 2025, targeting 2026 |
| BTR New Material (Baoan) | Cathodes, 50,000 t/yr | $297m | Production lines under assembly, 60% of civil works done, scheduled September 2026. Plans a further 60,000 t/yr anode plant |
Notably, BTR's plant will source 90% of its electricity from renewables — which matters for CBAM exposure on anything shipped into the EU.
Also present: Sendy International, a Senkirin Tires subsidiary producing 6–8 million high-performance tyres annually, in production since September 2024 with 600 jobs. And CCCC alongside China Road & Bridge Corporation leading a $10 billion smart city and logistics network.
Three Chinese battery projects widely associated with Morocco are not in this zone: Gotion High-Tech's $1.3 billion, 20GWh gigafactory is at Kenitra, 100 km south; CNGR's cathode plant is at Jorf Lasfar near Casablanca; and Huayou Cobalt, LG Chem and Tinci have no publicly confirmed link to Tanger Tech.
That distinction matters for anyone tracking the sector. Morocco's Chinese battery investment is real but distributed across several sites, and conflating them overstates any single one.
Why Morocco, specifically
Three things Morocco has that few places combine.
Free trade access to the EU. Morocco has an association agreement with the European Union. Goods manufactured there enter under different terms from goods shipped from China — which is the entire point when EU duties on Chinese electric vehicles reach into the thirties.
Geography. Tangier is roughly an hour from Spain across the Strait. Tangier Med is among the largest container ports in the Mediterranean and Africa.
An existing automotive base. Morocco already hosts significant vehicle manufacturing for European brands, meaning skills, suppliers and logistics exist rather than needing creating.
Add the resource dimension — Morocco holds around 70% of world phosphate reserves, relevant to LFP cathode chemistry — and the location makes sense on industrial grounds rather than only on tariff arbitrage.
What this means if you are on the European side
This is the localisation route that does not appear in European localisation statistics. Debate about Chinese manufacturing in Europe focuses on Hungary and Spain. A parallel supply chain is being assembled in Morocco with EU trade access, lower costs, no European state aid scrutiny and no Foreign Subsidies Regulation exposure. It is the same strategy executed just outside the perimeter.
The materials layer is the part Europe is missing. Copper foil, anodes and cathodes are the inputs European gigafactories need and largely import. Those inputs are now being produced 14 kilometres from the EU's southern edge by Chinese firms. European battery projects will be buying from them, which converts a supply chain dependency on China into a supply chain dependency on Chinese-owned plants in Morocco — a different geography and the same suppliers.
Renewable sourcing is a compliance strategy, not just optics. BTR's 90% renewable electricity target reads differently once CBAM is running: a low carbon intensity at the materials stage is a competitive advantage on entry to the EU, and it is being engineered in from the start.
For European firms, Morocco is worth treating as an extension of the European industrial map rather than as an African market. The companies building there already do.