Rabat - During a parliamentary session on Tuesday, Mohamed Najib Boulif, Morocco’s Minister Delegate to the Minister of Equipment, Transport and Logistics, said that 75 % of the high speed rail line construction between Casablanca and tangier has been completed and that the line will go into operation in 2018.
The Minister Delegate also said that Morocco ranks first in Africa and the Arab World and fifty-fifth worldwide in railway infrastructure, outranking South Africa.
King Mohammed VI , Former President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Saudi Arabian Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz launched the project in September 2011. The line was originally expected to operate in 2015. Due to delays in infrastructure construction, it was postponed to 2017 and then to 2018 without citing any specific reasons.
The high-speed train is the first project of its kind in Africa and the Arab world. It will reduce the travel time between Casablanca and Tangier to two hours and ten minutes from four hours and 45 minutes.
The project, which is estimated to cost MAD 20 billion ($2 billion) is also expected to carry up to seven million passengers in the first year, decrease accidents, create both direct and indirect job opportunities, and reduce the amount of carbon in the air.
Edited by Elisabeth Myers
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