Professionals from the mining sector promote new business opportunities for the economic development of Spain and Morocco.
News / 07-11-2023
Marrakech has hosted the Morocco-Spain Mining Forum, a bilateral meeting around the European Union Raw Materials Alliance in Morocco. From October 30 to November 2, more than 60 representatives of the mining sector met in the Moroccan red city, with the aim of strengthening commercial relations between both countries and sharing their experiences.
Four days that are the result of the collaboration of prominent organizations: the Federation of the Moroccan Mining Industry (FDIM), the Association of Research Companies, Extractors, Mining-Metallurgical Transformers, Auxiliary and Services (AMINER), the Business Agency for Economic Transformation and Development (Andalucía TRADE), the Iberian Sustainable Mining Cluster (ISMC), the International Center for Raw Materials and Advanced Materials of Castilla y León (ICAMCYL) and the MINE.THE.GAP project, financed by the European Commission within the framework of the Horizon 2020 call.
From the warm official and institutional welcome to the interventions of the organizers, the first days were focused on the knowledge and experiences exchange. Thus, during the welcome event, Santiago Cuesta-López, executive general director of the ISMC Cluster and the Foundation ICAMCyL indicated that “we have a social and environmental responsibility in ensuring the supply of raw materials in a sustainable manner to Europe and its industry, strategic alliances with producing countries neighbouring the EU such as Morocco are going to be the key to meeting the objectives of the EU critical raw materials act.
Marta Cerati, executive manager of AMINER, highlighted the importance that “administrations and the business community can go hand in hand to increase the dimensions and potential of future mining projects in our countries.” Specifically, Cerati has highlighted the role of women in mining both in Spain and Morocco, where “they make up more than 50% of the students in engineering and almost half of the middle management in the mines.”
On the other hand, the second part of this meeting focused on technical field visits such as, for example, the one carried out in Draa Sfar, an underground mine in operation for Pb-Zn-Cu and the research center, both belonging to the group Managem.
This forum has constituted a unique opportunity to strengthen cooperation and promote synergies between Morocco and Spain in the mining field, contributing to the sustainable growth of both nations and the promotion of responsible mining, facilitating commercial meetings and relations between Moroccan companies and Spanish present.
“We closed the mission to Morocco with a very significant cooperation agreement, fully aligned with the objectives of the European Commission in the context of the European Pact for Critical Raw Materials. Morocco leads the world in phosphate reserves. We have seen first-hand that it has great potential in other resources such as Cobalt, essential to fulfil the EU plans to create Gigafactories for batteries. We expect strategic cooperation in the immediate future, both within the framework of our companies and in the context of specific projects of the Horizon Europe program for the scaling of sustainable mining technologies,” highlighted Santiago Cuesta-López.
If you want to know more about this important international meeting, please, download the press releases:
Marrakech a abrité le premier Forum Minier Maroc-Espagne (hespress.com)