Global development Will Africa’s first high-speed train be a £1.5bn magic bullet for Morocco? TGV trains will halve journey times from Casablanca to Tangier, but -- * Share via Email Morocco's new high-speed trains await testing [ ] Morocco ranks lower than many of its north African neighbours on -- Today, once-glitzy Tangier isn’t the destination it was half a century ago, when renowned artists and foreign spies haunted its bars and hotels. But the city’s fortunes may soon shift. A new high-speed railway, the first in Africa, was inaugurated last month, linking the cities along Morocco’s western edge. “In two hours, it will take you -- Marrakech. Today, Morocco has one of the longest modernised networks of highways in Africa, and a massively expanded deep sea port just nine miles across the water from Spain. “High-speed rail fits within this model, which is supposed to take Morocco beyond its present growth rate,” says Benhamou. -- risk of a public health crisis. Workers begin first-day of construction for the TGV high-speed train line linking Casablanca to the south via the capital Rabat Facebook Twitter Pinterest Workers begin first-day of construction for the TGV high-speed train line linking Casablanca to the south via the capital Rabat. Photograph: Stringer/Reuters -- For this reason, many have questioned Morocco’s decision to accept nearly a billion dollars from France, and another half-billion from a handful of Gulf states, to finance a high-speed railway. Most of the money came through loans that will need to be repaid. To cover these debts, a ticket from Casablanca to Tangier would have to be priced -- Even that may be too high to attract a significant number of passengers. Outside Rabat’s threadbare railway station, Ahmed Hakim, a 32-year-old resident of Marrakech, says that even after the high-speed service launches, he’s likely to stick to Morocco’s cheaper conventional trains, which are among the most comfortable and reliable -- French President Emmanuel Macron and Moroccan King Mohammed VI inaugurate a high-speed line at Tangier station on 15 November Facebook Twitter Pinterest French President Emmanuel Macron and Moroccan King Mohammed VI inaugurate a high-speed line at Tangier station on 15 November. Photograph: Christophe Archambault/AFP/Getty Images -- But there’s a cognitive dissonance to this strategy. “Fighting corruption, cutting red tape, economic reforms – these are the things that actually attract investors,” says El Hyani. “Not a high-speed train.” On Transparency International’s 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index, which ranks countries on their perceived levels of impropriety, -- “framework for the socio-economic transformation of the continent”. Adopted in Addis Ababa in 2015, one of its goals is a sprawling, integrated high-speed rail network that would ultimately “connect all the cities/capitals on the continent”. This goal was included shortly after a visit to Addis Ababa by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, China’s official pitchman for that country’s high-speed rail industry. Given China’s multiplying interests in Africa – with enterprises that include several Chinese-built railways – Beijing no doubt sees the continent as -- Infrastructure funding is finite, a point that Morocco’s Stop TGV coalition tried to convey. The group estimates that for every ten metres of high-speed track Morocco has built, the government could have paid for a much-needed rural school instead. “There have always been two Moroccos,” says Benhamou. With the high-speed railway, the government has signalled its belief that resources poured into the first Morocco will trickle down to the second, a notion Benhamou finds