CAF will build 40 trains for 600 million euros for Morocco before the 2030 World Cup

New international success for the Moroccan railway sector. The Basque company CAF has managed to sign a contract to supply 40 intercity trains to the North African country for 600 million euros. 

The trains, with a capacity to reach speeds of up to 200 km/h, are expected to be operational before the 2030 World Cup, which Morocco is co-organising with Spain and Portugal. This is part of a €1.53 billion railway renovation project involving the French company Alstom and the South Korean company Hyundai Rotem. 

Part of the project will be financed by the Spanish government through a 750 million euro loan granted by the Fund for the Internationalisation of Spanish Enterprise (FIEM). The ONCF, the Moroccan state operator, emphasised in an official statement that these offers are economically advantageous and include 20-year maintenance agreements and technology transfer, and that some of the components of these trains will be manufactured in Morocco. 

For CAF, this award is the first major contract in Morocco, a country that is seeking to modernise its rail network and expand its coverage from 51% to 87% of the population by 2040. In principle, the new trains will operate on the Fez-Marrakech and Kenitra-Fez routes. 

At a business forum in Rabat, the Secretary of State for Trade, Amparo López-Senovilla, emphasised that bilateral trade reached 22 billion euros in 2024, with Spain as the Maghreb country's main trading partner. 

Morocco plans to invest 14,000 million euros a year in infrastructure, including a new Kenitra-Casablanca-Marrakech high-speed line, with an estimated cost of 3,000 million euros. Talgo, the other Spanish company in the railway sector, was excluded in the initial bidding phase. This contract strengthens Spain's presence in Moroccan railway development, in competition with France, its current main investor.