The Chinese pharmaceutical group SINOPHARM and the Moroccan pharmaceutical company SOTHEMA in early July 2021 reached an agreement to produce and distribute the SINOPHARM vaccine against Covid-19 in Morocco. SOTHEMA, a Moroccan state-owned company, will provide its industrial facilities for the project for an estimated investment of 421 million euros and an initial administration of 5 million doses per month. Morocco would thus become the first among African countries to produce the anti-Covid vaccine on site.
Thus begins to consolidate the new sanitary silk road, announced by Xi Jinping during the pandemic, and which involves the developing countries of Africa and Asia.
The health partnership between China and Morocco had already started in August 2020, when the clinical trial phase of the Chinese vaccine was started in view of obtaining the approval license. Furthermore, already in 2016, following the visit to Beijing of King Mohammed VI, the infrastructure project of the Cité Mohamed VI Tanger Tech was announced, an industrial pole destined to welcome foreign companies in the automotive, aeronautics, electronic information, textile industry, machinery manufacturing and pharmaceuticals sectors. Tax incentives and access to Tanger Med, the largest port in the Western Mediterranean, are also provided for companies in the moroccan industrial pole.
However, Morocco is not the only Arican country with which China has entered into pharmaceutical agreements. In fact, China has already signed agreements with Egypt for the local production of the SINOVAC vaccine.
Silk Council Press Office
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