Ferry to Morocco

[Robbo]

Is anything happening on the mooted ferry link with Morocco?

[Johnrgby]

I was in a bar a month or two back, and it came up in conversation, then somebody I cannot remember whether he was part of the conversation or not, produced an Ipad, and gave chapter and verse on it.

Run by Aramas Two sailings a week, I think he said Tuesdays and Fridays, fares are to be circa 60€ each way and I am convinced he said the start date was 1112/18, but if that was true it has gone on totally under the radar.

[Spitfire58]

Is anything happening on the mooted ferry link with Morocco?

I hope not !!

[Emmi Smith]

"Before the meeting with El Othmani, the Canarian president participated in an offering at the Mohamed V Mausoleum and met with Habib Al Malki and Nasser Bourita. In all the meetings, Clavijo expressed concern about the situation of migration and especially the unaccompanied minors who arrive in the Archipelago, and stressed that the "best environment for these children is the family". The head of the regional government also moved the opportunity to recover a program of European cooperation of the Canary Islands-Morocco neighbourhood that contributes financially to strengthen cooperation."

Interestingly, I have a friend who is a high ranking officer in the Guardia Civil, he too is not happy at the new ferry proposal.

[Johnrgby]

"Before the meeting with El Othmani, the Canarian president participated in an offering at the Mohamed V Mausoleum and met with Habib Al Malki and Nasser Bourita. In all the meetings, Clavijo expressed concern about the situation of migration and especially the unaccompanied minors who arrive in the Archipelago, and stressed that the "best environment for these children is the family". The head of the regional government also moved the opportunity to recover a program of European cooperation of the Canary Islands-Morocco neighbourhood that contributes financially to strengthen cooperation."

Interestingly, I have a friend who is a high ranking officer in the Guardia Civil, he too is not happy at the new ferry proposal.

To be honest Emmi, it does not take a lot of thinking about to realise why he wouldn't be.

[Emmi Smith]

True, but there are  too many people in high places pushing for it. Guess it might have something to do with brown envelopes.

[Johnrgby]

True, but there are  too many people in high places pushing for it. Guess it might have something to do with brown envelopes.

Good God, now whatever makes you think that

[Emmi Smith]

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Noticias:

Newport and Gesport resume the route from Fuerteventura to Tarfaya.

The businessmen José Antonio Newport and Francisco Naranjo travel to Tarfaya with Proexca and the Chamber of Fuerteventura to present the passenger and freight transport project



The two companies, led by their respective owners, José Antonio Newport and Francisco Naranjo, recently traveled to the Moroccan town (formerly Cabo Juby), to present to the Ministry of Transport and Logistics the project to transfer goods and passengers between the capital of Majorera and Tarfaya.



The Alawite Government gave its approval to the recovery of the line, which has been stalled for more than 10 years due to disparity of institutional criteria between the governments of Spain and Morocco.



The business forecast, which has the support of the Cabildo of the island and the regional government, is to have the administrative guarantees in the second half of 2023 and start the first transfers at the end of the year or the beginning of 2024.



Tarfaya is less than 100 kilometers from Puerto del Rosario. In the last decade it became the panacea of commercial exchanges between the Islands and Morocco, above all, for its proximity (50 minutes by road) to El Aaiún, the administrative pole of Western Sahara with a population of 300,000 people.



Tarfaya, scene in the last century of one of the masterpieces of European literature (The Little Prince), operated as a stop for commercial aviation between Europe and Atlantic Africa.



It also remained a former Spanish colony until it obtained its transfer to Moroccan sovereignty. The Canarian Government came to invest up to 2 million euros in the construction of one of the shelter docks, during the mandate of Adán Martín (CC). Rabat, for its part, has allocated more than 40 million euros to the completion of the dikes and breakwaters, with an endowment of commercial and industrial land of 10,000 square meters.



The grounding of a ferry ship from Armas because of the Moroccan authorities when dredging the sand bottoms, ruined the business expectations of the two shores.



For four years, the Cabildo de Fuerteventura, and the participation of the public company Proexca, have resized the project with the attraction of influential companies, such as Newport (one of the pioneers in Tarfaya) and Gesport, one of the container terminals present in the three state-owned ports of Las Palmas.



The visit to Tarfaya was also attended by the delegate of Proexca in Morocco, Elvira Butler, and the president of the Chamber of Commerce of Fuerteventura, Juan Jesús Marichal.

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Noticias:

The Puerto del Rosario-Tarfaya line will be operational in 2024.

"The commercial activity that can be generated on the island would change our way of understanding trade with Africa"


The maritime line Puerto del Rosario with Tarfaya could be a reality this year, or at least this is what emerges from the statements to the newspaper La Provincia by Blas Trujillo, Director of Institutional Relations of the Newport Group, one of the promoters, together with Hamilton y Cía de Puerto de Tarfaya Canarias S.A.



"To do this, it is necessary to provide the capital's port with the necessary facilities, such as the necessary infrastructures that must be developed by the institutions involved, such as the Border Inspection Point or even for road traffic, an installation must be made for vehicles to pass through a series of disinfection pits, that is, Each administration has its own role and monthly meetings will be organized to get this maritime line back on track. If all goes well, it will be launched in the summer," says Trujillo.



The consortium of companies Hamilton y Cia and Grupo Newport have held up to 6 meetings with the Moroccan, Spanish and Canary Islands government authorities to try to unblock the project, which began to take shape after a visit by the previous president Ángel Victor Torres, accompanied by a commercial delegation, last March, to the Alawite institutions and economic authorities.

Subsequently, on 2 June, the former Minister of Economy, Elena Mañez, accompanied the business consortium, Empresas Puerto de Tarfaya Canarias S.A. to hold more technical meetings with the secretary general of Morocco's Ministry of Transport and Logistics, Khalid Cherkaouni, where the willingness of both parties to recover the route was confirmed, explains La Provincia.



As it could not be otherwise, in this legislature, the current president Clavijo has shown all the institutional support and in the words of Blas Trujillo "he has gone from words to deeds", with a meeting of the Canarian president with the Consul of Morocco, Fatiha El Kamouri to work on the line of speeding up the procedures to reopen the line.



The figure of the new Director General of the Merchant Navy



The Spanish state convened, through the Government Delegation in the Canary Islands, a meeting between the institutions involved by the Spanish side, which in the words of Trujillo is very important since "it means putting all the actors of this maritime section in line".

The meeting was attended by the new Director General of the Merchant Navy, Gustavo Santana, who becomes the guarantor of the needs of the port of the capital of Fuerteventura when it comes to having the necessary services to activate the route.



Also participating were the Government Delegate and Sub-delegate, the Director General of Relations with Africa, representatives of the companies Newport and Hamilton y Cía, as well as members of the State Security Forces and Corps, Customs, Port Authority of Las Palmas, Harbour Master's Office, Foreign Health and Plant Health.



Visit by Moroccan authorities and technicians



On January 11 and 12, the first high-level visit to the islands will take place to correspond at the institutional level and make technical level assessments at the dock of Puerto del Rosario.



The visit will be attended by Khalid Cherkaoui, Secretary General of the Ministry of Transport and Logistics of Morocco, Najib El Kaykouri, Director of the Moroccan Merchant Navy, Anes El Oualia Head of the Maritime Transport Division, Moustapha Lhamouz Director of Regulation of Activities and Operations and Mouakka EL-Mostafa, Commander of the Port of Laâyoune.



During the visit to the islands, they will be received on the 11th by President Fernando Clavijo at the offices of the Presidency of the Government in Tenerife and will visit the facilities of Puerto del Rosario, while they will be received by Lola García at the Cabildo Insular de Fuerteventura.



The role of the Fuerteventura Chamber of Commerce



The real possibility of soon starting a maritime line with the neighbouring continent is for the Fuerteventura Chamber "a vital opportunity for the commercial development of Fuerteventura", and Juan Jesús Rodríguez Marichal, its president, has been positioning himself in this fight.



"It is important to visualise the opportunity that is opening up and the possibilities of changing, at least a little, the economic sense of an island like Fuerteventura that has no other socio-economic model than tourism," he explains.



"When you are facing a potential market of millions of people and an island can become the commercial HUB to develop all kinds of import and export operations, the opportunities that open up are exponential for Fuerteventura," says the president of the Chamber of Commerce.