 Moroccan, French railway companies ink $85 Mln assistance contracts to build high-spe
Rabat - The Moroccan railway office (ONCF) and French National Railway (SNCF) signed, here Thursday, several assistance contracts worth 65 million Euros (85.5 million dollars) to build a high speed line between the cities of Tangier (north) and Casablanca.
The contracts were signed by Moroccan transport Minister, Karim Ghellab, ONCF CEO, Mohamed Rabie Khlie, SNCF chairman, Guillaume Pepy and SNCF international CEO, Jean-Pierre Loubinoux.
The agreements provide for the design, construction, launch, exploitation of the rolling stock and the maintenance of the high-speed line that includes a 200 kilometres-long section where the speed of the train can attain 320 km per hour.
Under these contracts, 34 French experts will be dispatched to Morocco to work for 79 months to share their know-how and experience in the field of high-speed technology with ONCF staff.
The Tangier-Casablanca high-speed link, part of the ONCF project to build a network of 1,500 km of high-speed railways by 2035, is due to reduce the travel time between the two cities to 2 h 10 min and carry about 8 million passengers a year.
The project will “help reduce accidents” and “have a positive impact on the environment,” Ghellab told reporters, while Khlie underlined that the contracts signed are part of the agreement protocol signed in 2007 under the chairmanship of King Mohammed VI and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. | 
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