Plastics in Morocco: what the sector makes
When plastics come up in Morocco, people often think of bags, banned since 2016. Yet the Moroccan plastics industry makes much more: agricultural films, pipes for construction, and packaging, down to the bottles that hold medicines.
By Tecmom editorial team · 2 min read
A sector that counts
The plastics processing industry covers the companies that turn plastic materials into objects: by injection moulding, extrusion, blow moulding, thermoforming. The sector is organised around its trade body, the Moroccan Plastics Federation, a member of the General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises. Its published figures, jobs or turnover, vary widely by source, year and scope: this article retains none.
Three pillars, packaging among them
In January 2018, the state and the industry launched a plastics ecosystem as part of the country's industrial policy. According to the business press at the time, it rests on three pillars: plasticulture, meaning agricultural films and equipment; building and public works; and packaging.
Packaging is not one block. It ranges from bags and film, made in very large volumes, to technical parts made in precision moulds: caps, bottles, pill containers.
Healthcare packaging, a demanding niche
Within packaging, the part intended for medicines follows its own rules. It touches the product, goes into its marketing authorisation file, and is made under good practice specific to packaging materials, those of ISO 15378. Compatibility with the contents, sealing and barrier are documented requirements there, not sales arguments.
It is a niche in volume, but it pulls the sector towards precision: controlled tooling, controlled environment, traceability of every lot.
Plast Expo, the showcase
The Moroccan Plastics Federation regularly organises the Plast Expo trade fair in Casablanca. Its fifth edition was held there from 19 to 22 June 2013. Tecmom presented its range of bottles, tubes and pill containers at an earlier edition, meeting pharmaceutical and cosmetic manufacturers from the region. See the news.
Where Tecmom stands
Tecmom, based in the Ouled Saleh industrial zone in Bouskoura, near Casablanca, belongs to this precision end of the industry: it designs its moulds and makes, by injection moulding, injection blow moulding and multilayer extrusion, packaging for the pharmaceutical, veterinary, cosmetic and food industries. See our expertise and the company.
Morocco's plastics industry is neither just the banned bag nor just agricultural film. Part of it works to tight tolerances, in controlled environments, for laboratories. It is the least visible part, and probably the most demanding.
Glossary
- Plastics processing
- The trades that turn plastic materials into objects.
- Plasticulture
- The use of plastics in agriculture: greenhouse films, mulch, irrigation.
- Industrial ecosystem
- A Moroccan industrial policy scheme that organises a sector around shared goals.
- Injection moulding
- A process that forces molten plastic into a closed mould.