His Majesty King Mohammed VI, may God assist Him, accompanied by HRH Crown Prince Moulay El Hassan, chaired on Friday at the Royal Palace in Casablanca the presentation and launch ceremony of the project to build a landing gear production factory for Safran in Nouaceur, a project that reinforces Morocco as a destination of choice and a true integrated industrial actor at the heart of the global economy.

Considered one of the largest manufacturing centres in the world for Safran Landing Systems, the plant will represent an investment of more than EUR 280 million, create 500 jobs, and operate on 100% decarbonised energy, while helping attract new suppliers within the Moroccan ecosystem. The future site will be located within the integrated aeronautics and space platform Midparc.

It will endow the Kingdom with advanced capabilities in precision machining, high-technology assembly, testing, certification and advanced maintenance. Dedicated to the Airbus A320, the factory will be built to the highest standards and equipped with modern, high-performance production tools.

The project bears witness to the attention granted by His Majesty the King to Morocco’s industrial development and highlights the momentum driven by the Sovereign to position the Kingdom as a competitive industrial platform on a global scale.

Minister of Industry and Trade Ryad Mezzour underlined that in two decades Morocco has risen to the rank of a world-reference aeronautical platform. In this dynamic, Safran, a partner of the Kingdom for over a quarter of a century, occupies a special place by accompanying the move upmarket of the national industry.

The plant will be developed on a land base of more than seven hectares. For Mezzour, manufacturing landing gear systems in Morocco demonstrates mastery of complex technologies and marks a new step in consolidating integration into global value chains. He added that the project opens prospects for Moroccan youth, with 25,000 talents already active in the sector.

Safran Chairman Ross McInnes welcomed the continuation of this partnership, recalling the launch last October of the aircraft engine industrial complex under the presidency of His Majesty the King. The project will support the ramp-up of Airbus A320 production while preparing future aircraft generations.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, His Majesty the King presided over the signing of the memorandum of understanding relating to the project.