As the center of gravity of the global automobile industry accelerates its shift to emerging markets, Morocco has emerged as an African automobile industry hub by virtue of its core advantages of “connecting three major markets, overlapping policy dividends, and increasingly improving industrial chains.”
In its US$4.5 billion auto parts market, the tire field has become the core growth point with an annual growth rate of 8%.
For Chinese tire companies that have long been trapped by the “double-reverse” barriers in Europe and the United States, Morocco is not only a “bridgehead” to avoid trade barriers, but also a strategic location for building a global production capacity network.
The Chinese tire companies’ clustering in Morocco is by no means an accidental choice, but a precise grasp of market opportunities, location value and policy dividends. The superimposed effect of the three forms an irreplaceable investment attraction.
Advantage 1: Rigid explosion of market demand.
The size of the Moroccan tire market has reached 800 million euros in 2023, and is expected to grow by 8% in 2024. The demand for passenger tires is stable, and the demand for truck and bus tires is rising in parallel with the expansion of infrastructure construction and the logistics industry.
More than half of the 4.5 million vehicles in the local fleet are over 10 years old. Demand for tire replacement in the after-sales market continues to be strong, providing Chinese tire companies with a broad market space.
At the same time, Morocco is promoting the construction of its first electric vehicle battery production industrial zone. As a core supporting tire product for new energy vehicles, it will usher in a period of explosive growth in the incremental market. This accurately matches the technology accumulation of Chinese tire companies in the field of new energy tires.
Advantage 2: Global radiation value brought by location advantage.
Morocco is located at the northwest tip of Africa, facing Europe across the Strait of Gibraltar, and only 14 kilometers away from Spain. Maritime transportation from Tangier Port to the European market only takes more than ten days, which is 1/3 to 1/4 of the transportation time from China or the base in Thailand.
More importantly, Morocco has signed free trade agreements with the European Union and the United States, and tire products exported to Europe and the United States can enjoy zero-tariff treatment. This provides Chinese tire companies, which have long been attacked by Europe and the United States, with a “golden channel” to avoid trade barriers, allowing them to use Morocco as a springboard to reach 1 billion consumer groups in the three major markets of the European Union, the Arab world, and Africa.
Advantage three: continued increase in policy dividends.
In order to attract investment in the automobile industry, the Moroccan government has introduced very attractive preferential policies, including tax benefits of “exemption from corporate income tax for the first five years and a permanent 50% reduction from the sixth year”, as well as a policy of full exemption of import duties, import value-added tax, production and consumption tax, and export tax. Business tax and municipal tax are exempted for 15 years.
In addition, the government has also taken measures such as building free trade zones, providing production subsidies of up to 35%, and demarcating exclusive production areas for automobiles to reduce costs and improve efficiency for localized production of tire companies.
For strategic projects with large investment scales, the government can also provide customized special support measures, which undoubtedly further reduces the investment risks of enterprises.
The layout of Chinese tire companies in Morocco has been upgraded from an early tentative entry to a large-scale, intelligent and in-depth layout.
Among them, the practices of Sen Qilin, Yongsheng and Guizhou Tire are quite representative.
Senqilin’s “Going Overseas 2.0” model project can be regarded as an industry benchmark.
In September 2024, Sentury’s Moroccan factory was officially put into production, and the first batch of 17-inch and 18-inch tires successfully rolled off the production line. It only took 11 months from the start of construction in October 2023 to the start of production, creating “Senkylin Speed”.
The factory is located in Tangier Automobile City, with a total investment of US$193 million and an annual output of 12 million high-performance passenger car tires. It is the largest foreign investment project in Morocco in 2023 and has been established as a model project by the Chinese and Moroccan governments.
Senkylin has positioned the factory as the core node of its globalization strategy. By deploying in Morocco, it has completed the construction of the “Golden Triangle” of global production capacity of “China-Thailand-Morocco”. The three bases rely on each other and can respond more flexibly to global customer needs.
This factory demonstrates the intelligent upgrade of Chinese tire companies going overseas. Its level of intelligence is higher than that of Sentury Qingdao and Thailand factories. Through global procurement of the most advanced production equipment, it has realized the information flow drive of the entire process from material storage, material issuance, material retrieval to production and warehousing. The equipment is interconnected and the number of employees is reduced by 15% – 20% compared with the Thai factory.
In order to ensure that production is reached immediately after the production is put into operation, Senkilin sent many batches of Moroccan employees to the factory in Thailand for training in advance, and recruited local talents who are proficient in multiple languages to strengthen localized operation capabilities.
Shandong Yongsheng has launched the construction of a semi-steel radial tire project with an annual output of 6 million sets in Diouche Province, Morocco, with a total investment of approximately US$675 million.
The factory’s future production capacity is planned to be increased to 12 million units, mainly for the European, African and American markets.
The project makes full use of Morocco’s geographical advantages of being adjacent to the Mediterranean Sea and Europe, as well as its free trade agreements with the European Union, the United States and other countries, to effectively reduce export costs and avoid trade barriers.
Yongsheng Rubber’s layout in Morocco is an important part of its globalization strategy.
Previously, the company also invested in building a tire production base in Saudi Arabia, forming a complementary production capacity network covering passenger car and commercial vehicle tires.
Relying on the intelligent production experience accumulated in China, the company has copied the automation and digital models to overseas factories, significantly improving production efficiency and product competitiveness, and supporting its continued expansion into the international market.
Guizhou Tire entered the market with a “step-by-step approach to establishing new subsidiaries” model.
In January 2026, Guizhou Tire announced that it planned to invest in the construction of an “intelligent manufacturing project with an annual output of 6 million semi-steel radial tires” in Morocco, with a total investment of US$299 million. It plans to implement it through the newly established Qianjin Tire (Morocco) Co., Ltd., and the registered address is also selected in Tangier Science and Technology City.
The project is expected to have a construction period of two years. After it is put into operation, it can achieve an average annual sales revenue of US$183 million and an average annual total profit of US$40.8659 million.
Guizhou Tire stated that this investment is a prudent decision based on strategic development. It aims to enrich the product structure and optimize the production capacity layout by building a second overseas production base, further expand overseas markets, and improve order delivery capabilities.
From the perspective of site selection, Tangier Science and Technology City’s complete industrial supporting facilities, convenient logistics network and policy dividends are the core reasons for Guizhou Tire to choose this location. This also reflects the homogeneous choice of Chinese tire companies in overseas layout – focusing on industrial clusters and sharing resource advantages.
It can be seen from the layout of the three companies that the layout of Chinese tire companies in Morocco presents three major characteristics: first, the location selection focuses on industrial clusters such as Tangier, relying on local logistics and industrial supporting advantages; second, it emphasizes intelligent production, improves efficiency and reduces costs through technological upgrades; third, focuses on localized operations, from employee training to talent recruitment, and fully integrates into the local market.
This layout model has transcended the traditional “cost-oriented” overseas expansion and shifted to a “market-oriented and efficiency-oriented” overseas expansion, marking that the global operation capabilities of Chinese tire companies have entered a new stage.
The release of dividends from Morocco’s US$4.5 billion auto parts market has provided Chinese tire companies with a new window to break through trade barriers and expand the global market.
From the rapid start-up of Sen Qilin to the active layout of Yongsheng and Guizhou Tire, Chinese tire companies are showing strong competitiveness in the Moroccan market with an intelligent and local attitude.
In the future, with the development of Morocco’s new energy automobile industry and the restructuring of the global automobile supply chain, those Chinese tire companies that can achieve precise strategic layout will not only gain a firm foothold in the Moroccan market, but also use Morocco as a fulcrum to radiate into the three major markets in the world and achieve leapfrog development in their globalization strategy.
The Morocco International Auto Parts Exhibition, which will be held in November 2026, will also become an important platform for Chinese tire companies to connect with local buyers and demonstrate product strength, providing assistance for companies to deepen their localization efforts.
