Drones: Morocco at the dawn of industrial take‑off

A few years ago, no one would have bet on Turkey becoming one of the most competitive players in the global military drone industry. Baykar was then a little‑known SME, founded by a determined engineer who had run up against every imaginable administrative obstacle before finally persuading the Turkish military to place an initial order.

Today, the Bayraktar TB2 has altered the course of three wars, its manufacturer has become a national industrial icon, and Turkey exports its “drone diplomacy” across four continents.

In Benguerir, in a zone still under development, a Moroccan engineer bent over the plans of tactical drones could well embody a similar wager. In Casablanca, a digital entrepreneur is transforming sensors and algorithms into aerial surveillance solutions for industrial clients who are only just beginning to discover what this tool can do for them.

These two men are not alike. They do not do the same job. But they share the same conclusion: Morocco has all the ingredients needed to succeed in the drone sector. The question is whether it will seize the window of opportunity before it closes.

The strategic window

The global civil drone market was worth $14 billion in 2022. It is expected to reach $40 billion by 2030, according to French firm Reportlinker, a specialist in market data analysis.

The military market is growing at an even faster pace: the war in Ukraine has consumed hundreds of thousands of drones in three years, and every conflict that opens in the Middle East or the Sahel generates new procurement programmes, new doctrines of use, and new serial orders. Never has global demand for drones been so strong.

And never has the barrier to entry into this industry been so low. The drone is now the most accessible entry segment within a Defence Industrial and Technological Base (DITB).

It does not require the decades of investment demanded by fighter aircraft or missile systems; it naturally lends itself to civilian‑military dual use; and it is technologically compatible with the skills developed over the past twenty years in Morocco’s automotive and aeronautical sectors. A convergence of advantages that few African countries can claim.

Strengths and dependencies

Soufiane Ammagui, Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington and founder of Aerodrive Engineering Services, specialised in tactical drone design, has precisely mapped what Morocco genuinely controls within this value chain. His diagnosis is that of a practitioner.

On strengths, he is unequivocal:
“The Kingdom is already able to create significant value in composite structures, systems integration, and embedded software—segments that concentrate a large share of operational sovereignty.”

These segments correspond exactly to the expertise developed and tested over two decades by subcontractors working for Renault, Boeing, and Safran in Nouaceur. The industrial capital exists. It is waiting to be redirected.

But Ammagui also identifies critical dependencies, with the same candour:
“Dependence remains strong in critical segments such as optronics, advanced propulsion systems, and certain secure data links, which are dominated by international players subject to export constraints.”

Today, Morocco can build the drone’s body and clothe it in software. It does not yet control its eyes—optronic sensors—its high‑performance engines, nor its secure communications.

This gap can only be bridged through R&D. “If the ambition is to position oneself in the production of high added‑value defence systems, investing in structured R&D aligned with real operational needs becomes indispensable,” insists Ammagui. This is the unavoidable passage that Turkey, Israel, and South Korea have all gone through, via decisive investment and structuring public procurement.

The heavy‑model trap

There is a strategic risk at the heart of Morocco’s industrial approach that few observers have yet articulated publicly. Recent wars have shown that superiority in drones no longer comes from sophistication, but from speed of adaptation.

In Ukraine, the design‑to‑upgrade cycle for a tactical drone is measured in weeks—six on average to integrate a countermeasure and roll out an improved version. For a major Western defence contractor, the same process takes a year, sometimes more.

Yet Morocco is building its defence industry on the model of large Western players: secure industrial zones, partnerships with Lockheed Martin, Baykar, and Elbit Systems, and long, rigorous certification processes. A model that is institutionally credible, but structurally ill‑suited to the agility demanded by modern drone warfare.

Ammagui identifies this risk with precision that should command the attention of decision‑makers:
“Morocco is currently leaning more towards a Western model than an agile one. The ambition to position itself as a defence industrial hub follows a logic of industrial structuring rather than rapid iteration. The challenge will be not to sacrifice adaptability—now decisive—in favour of an overly rigid model.”

The point is not to challenge the choices made, but to highlight the strategic trade‑off facing the Kingdom. Articulating industrial platforms in Benslimane, dedicated to high‑value complex systems, with an ecosystem of agile SMEs closely connected to the operational needs of the Royal Armed Forces, could structure a coherent and effective sector.

Civil market: a limited springboard

Reda El Arbaoui heads Dr Stone, one of Morocco’s most active companies in the professional civil‑drone sector. His reading of the market reflects years of hands‑on experience, combined with the lucidity of someone who knows its mechanics.

“Demand is still fragmented today, but it is evolving very rapidly,” he acknowledges. For years, the market was driven mainly by pilot projects and isolated experiments.

Today, structuring sectors such as energy, topography, industrial inspection, and agriculture are beginning to generate recurring orders and dedicated budgets.

OCP was among the first major Moroccan groups to integrate drones into its industrial processes, followed by ONHYM and the Royal Gendarmerie, which deploys them for coastal and major road surveillance. “The fundamentals are now in place for Moroccan SMEs to grow and invest in technological development,” El Arbaoui believes.

But having “the fundamentals in place” does not mean the market truly exists at the scale required to sustain an industrial sector. Believing that civil demand alone could finance the emergence of a defence industry is to misunderstand the models that produced Baykar in Turkey and Elbit Systems in Israel.

In both cases, a clear, multi‑year, technically demanding national military order played the catalytic role. The civil market is an essential springboard—but it cannot substitute for a strategic decision by the State.

Public procurement: the missing lever

On this point, Ammagui and El Arbaoui are in full agreement: the main bottleneck is not technological, but institutional.
“The main lock is the establishment of a public procurement and operational experimentation framework,” Ammagui stresses.

“Law 10‑20 currently favours international industrial players. It needs to be complemented by a mechanism for sharing operational needs and providing financial support that allows local technologies to reach an operational and marketable level.”

Put plainly: Moroccan SMEs cannot on their own cross the gap between a promising prototype and a militarily certified product. They need a first client willing to take the risk with them. And in every country that has succeeded, that first client is the State.

El Arbaoui frames the same equation in financial terms:
“What is missing today is not talent, but the conditions for large‑scale emergence. The main lever is financing, particularly venture capital. One must accept a logic of massive and diversified investment—funding 100 start‑ups rather than 10 in order to see ten champions emerge.”
He adds: “With a clear vision, it is entirely conceivable to reach a local integration rate of over 70% by 2030.”

A decision to consolidate

The legal framework exists with Law 10‑20. Dedicated industrial zones are emerging in Benslimane and Berrechid under CDG’s project management. AMDIE is actively prospecting foreign investors. The National Defence Administration has signed agreements with Lockheed Martin, Baykar, Elbit Systems, and Tata Advanced Systems.

The Royal Armed Forces already possess heavy maintenance capabilities for armoured vehicles and are developing expertise in optronics. In Nouaceur, an internationally competitive aerospace subcontracting base—organised around the Aerospace Moroccan Cluster (AMC) and prime contractors such as Safran—awaits access to the defence sector.

Entrepreneurs like Reda El Arbaoui and Soufiane Ammagui, and Moroccan engineers trained at Airbus, Dassault, or Thales in Europe, are ready to put their skills at the service of this emerging sector.

What is missing is the consolidation of these assets: a structuring public procurement programme that provides local SMEs with their first institutional client; a modernised regulatory framework; a dedicated venture capital fund prepared to finance one hundred start‑ups to see ten champions emerge; and a professional organisation capable of representing this emerging ecosystem with the authority and coherence it deserves in the face of powerful international lobbies.

Morocco does not need to invent the drone—others have already done so. It needs to decide, now, to make it a sovereign industry.

Because in the global race for industrial sovereignty in this sector, every year lost is a head start handed to those who have already decided.

The regulatory bottleneck

Behind industrial announcements and strategic partnerships lies a daily obstacle well known to entrepreneurs in the sector: regulatory heaviness. Soufiane Ammagui quantifies its concrete cost:
“Obtaining an import licence takes at least six weeks, and flight authorisation must be requested around two weeks in advance, regardless of the duration or nature of the operation.”

For an industry whose added value depends on responsiveness and the ability to test under real conditions, this rigidity is a contradiction in terms. It primarily penalises local players, who are less well equipped than multinationals to absorb such delays.

Reda El Arbaoui broadens the diagnosis: “There is still no truly strong professional organisation capable of representing the ecosystem’s voice vis‑à‑vis public authorities or international actors. This creates an imbalance, particularly when confronted with foreign lobbies that are often better structured and enjoy influence channels that local actors do not yet have.”

A sectoral cluster, a recognised professional federation, a single interlocutor for the administration and investors—these are not corporatist demands.

They are the minimum conditions for a sector to exist as such, rather than as a constellation of dispersed talents meeting by chance at international defence exhibitions.

This bottleneck is the least costly to remove. It does not require billions in public investment. It requires firm administrative decision‑making and the will to organise the sector collectively.