Regional specialization and spatial concentration of manufacturing industry in Morocco

Abstract

This paper analyses the spatial distribution of manufacturing industries in Morocco by examining the degree of spatial concentration of industrial sectors and their location patterns. It aims, on the one hand, to measure through dedicated indices the level of spatial concentration of manufacturing activities and, on the other hand, to analyse the consequential regional specialization.

To achieve our objective, we will use three indices: the Gini index, the Herfindahl index and the Ellison-Glaeser index. To capture the main components of the industrial configuration at the provincial level, we use a variable for the number of manufacturing firms and a variable for the number of manufacturing workers. Both variables are broken down by manufacturing sector and by province. Our analysis covers the entire Moroccan territory with 12 regions. The regions are organized into 75 provinces corresponding to the spatial scale used in our analysis. The data used are from the annual survey of manufacturing industries conducted by the Ministry of Industry, Investment, Trade and the Digital Economy.

As for sectoral concentration, our results suggest that most of the manufacturing industry is concentrated in a small number of provinces and regions. This result is verified for the two variables of our study, namely the number of manufacturing firms and the number of manufacturing jobs. It would therefore seem that there is a certain structure in the location of manufacturing activities in Morocco. Indeed, there is a clear trend toward increasing concentration of manufacturing in specific provinces or regions. Regarding regional industrial specialization, our results show a tendency towards diversification in the provinces that are home to the major urban centers, such as Casablanca-Settat, Rabat-Salé-Kénitra and Tangier-Tétouan-Al Hoceima. The diversified provinces are characterized by the presence of a range of manufacturing industries allowing them to benefit from diversification externalities. Conversely, medium and small provinces tend to specialization. These relatively isolated provinces are characterized by the presence of few manufacturing industries, but can benefit from externalities related to industrial specialization.

Keywords: Geographic concentration, regional specialization, spatial externalities, concentration indices.

JEL Classification: R12, L11, D62, C43.  

Paper type: Empirical research