Construction & Real Estate

After a slowdown in recent years, Morocco’s construction industry saw a return to growth in 2014 and continues to be driven by strong demand for housing, public spending on infrastructure and investor incentives from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Policy – though constraints on credit access are restricting the volume of new developments. A unified construction code designed to raise standards, improve transparency, boost competition and reduce the incidence of informal building – which makes up 25% of sector activity, by some estimates – is expected to come into force in 2015. Real estate activity has closely followed that of construction, with transactions and foreign direct investment both increasing in 2014, though prices remained stable. Government incentives for development in the low-income and mid-range segments are designed to close the housing deficit, and a range of mixed-use projects are in the works.

This chapter contains interviews with Mohamed Nabil Benabdallah, Minister of Housing and Urban Policy; and Zhor Kabbaj, Director-General, Softgroup Immobilier.