Moroccan King, French President inaugurate Africa's first high-speed train

"Al Boraq", Africa's first high-speed railway linking the two major economic centres of Tangier and Casablanca, was jointly inaugurated by Morocco's King Mohammed VI and French President Emmanuel Macron, the Moroccan embassy has said.

The project mobilised investments of around 22.9 billion dirhams and has reduced travel times to 50 minutes instead of over 3 hours for Tangier-Kenitra trip, a little over one hour instead of nearly 4 hours for Tangier-Rabat journey and halved the travel time to 2 hours between Tangier and Casablanca.

The high-speed rail system was inaugurated on Thursday in the presence of representatives of the Arab Funds, of Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, which contributed to the project,

"A Moroccan-French partnership, Al Boraq" is the first stage of the master plan for the development of network of lines for high-speed trains in Morocco (TGVM), a master development project planned in the medium and long term with the objective of responding to the evolution of mobility within the Kingdom, said an embassy statement.

During the implementation phase, the project saw creation of 30 million days of direct and indirect employment, while in the exploitation phase, the Moroccan TGV is expected to generate 1,500 direct and 800 indirect jobs, said the statement.

--IANS

and/nir