Marrakech – A new policy analysis argues that Morocco can build a lasting defense industry if it opens military orders to local firms step by step, the way Türkiye did before its companies began to export.
The Russia-Ukraine war has brought defense back to the forefront of security policy, the brief observes, prompting European governments to increase military spending and expand production capacity. At the NATO summit in The Hague in June 2025, allies committed to allocating 5% of GDP to defense and security-related spending by 2035.
Meanwhile, countries such as Türkiye, India, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia had embarked on developing their domestic defense industries long before this renewed emphasis on military preparedness. Morocco, by comparison, entered the field more recently and on a considerably smaller scale.
The study, Policy Brief No. 11 in the Morocco Radar series, is a joint publication of the Moroccan Global Governance & Sovereignty Foundation (GGSF) and the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS). Published on October 8, it asks whether Morocco’s first military plants can grow into an industry that endures.
For decades, the brief recalls, the Royal Armed Forces (FAR) bought almost all of their main equipment abroad. A licensing law adopted in 2020 opened manufacturing to private firms, and the first industrial zones and plants followed.
Armored vehicles now come off a line in Berrechid, near Casablanca, and at Benslimane, Lockheed Martin and its partners are building a heavy maintenance center for military aircraft. Morocco, the analysis finds, now holds “the first elements of a defense technological and industrial base (DTIB).”
Two public bodies gave the licensing law, Law 10-20, a physical footprint. The Agence de logements et d’équipements militaires (ALEM), which manages land and infrastructure for the armed forces, supplied the sites. MEDZ, the industrial park developer of the state-owned Caisse de dépôt et de gestion (CDG) group, brought its experience running automotive and aerospace parks.
In 2025, the two created the Société de gestion des zones industrielles de défense (SGZID) to run both defense zones. For licensed firms, the brief writes, this means “dedicated sites under a single manager.”
Everything rests on how the army buys
The analysis turns on one point. The FAR will be the industry’s single large customer, and the way they place orders will shape everything else. The 2026 finance bill allocates about MAD 73 billion ($8 billion) to the National Defense Administration and authorizes MAD 157 billion ($17 billion) in multi-year commitments for the purchase and repair of equipment.
An order book opened “step by step to local firms is a sound way to begin,” the authors argue, since it gives suppliers steady volume and a reason to meet military standards. Türkiye followed a comparable path, placing small first orders with local firms years before they turned to exports.
First orders, the brief adds, can go to sectors that already have the skills. Armies buy uniforms, boots and tents in bulk, and their vehicles consume tires, filters and batteries that Moroccan textile and automotive suppliers already make for civilian customers.
Still, “qualification is the main obstacle,” since military buyers demand strict specifications and full traceability that most civilian firms have never had to document.
The picture is weaker at sea. “Naval work lags behind the rest of the sector,” the study cautions. European yards built the navy’s main vessels, and the national port authority is tendering a 30-year concession for a new Casablanca shipyard.
Drawing on recent conflicts, the brief notes that Ukrainian sea drones sank or damaged several Russian warships, while attacks from Yemen pushed navies to fire costly interceptors in the Red Sea. Frigates and submarines will still be imported, with maintenance done at home, while uncrewed vessels and sensors, fields where Moroccan civil industry already works, could bring local naval work.
Among the opportunities, the analysis points to maintaining the existing fleet, access to stretched Western supply chains, and small drones built from civil components, which Ukraine turned into “a mass weapon.”
The Benslimane center for F-16 and C-130 aircraft is the first step toward keeping fleet maintenance at home, and since air forces across Africa also fly the C-130, the brief notes a Moroccan depot could in time serve customers beyond the FAR.
In October 2024, it records, a Moroccan start-up, Aerodrive Engineering Services, signed an innovation funding agreement with the Ministry of Industry.
Three constraints on the ground
The brief weighs the risks as well. For most civil suppliers, defense will stay a small market. An automotive supplier counts its output in millions of parts a year, while military orders come in hundreds or thousands, and in France, the typical defense supplier earns less than a fifth of its revenue from defense.
Because the cost of qualifying does not shrink with the order, the authors suggest that grouping orders over several years would make the effort worthwhile for more firms.
Competition for skilled engineers is a second constraint. Safran alone plans a landing gear plant of about 500 jobs by 2029, the ten authorized defense projects should add some 2,500 direct jobs, and in 2019 the education minister told Parliament that about 600 engineers leave Morocco each year for Europe and North America.
Financing is the third. Firms pay up front for tooling and certification, then carry long contracts on their own working capital, and small and medium-sized suppliers feel this most. In 2020, France’s armaments agency acknowledged that banks were reluctant to lend to defense firms, with reports of refused loans and, in some cases, refused accounts tied to ESG screening.
Looking ahead, the authors recommend “a small defense-industrial unit within one of the existing institutions” to connect military requirements with industry, rather than copying France’s Direction générale de l’armement (DGA) or Saudi Arabia’s model.
France created the DGA in 1961 as a permanent link between its armed forces and industry, following each program from the definition of requirements through testing and delivery, with technical centers that give manufacturers access to domestic testing and qualification.
Saudi Arabia has moved in a similar direction more recently, through a dedicated authority that connects military procurement to the development of local industry.
Morocco, the brief argues, does not need to reproduce either; a smaller unit could translate longer-term requirements into an industrial outlook that firms can plan against, while institutions such as SGZID and the Ministry of Industry keep their current roles. It concludes that Moroccan researchers have already raised the idea of a dedicated institution to support the DTIB.
The findings come immediately after Marrakech Airshow 2026, where Morocco announced several industrial partnerships intended to accelerate domestic defense production. The report introduces an important distinction between attracting international defense manufacturers and establishing genuine technological independence.
Read also: Marrakech Airshow 2026: Loudyi Outlines Morocco’s Path From Arms Buyer to Maker
