Chinese Government provides RMB 5 million grant for Guelmim-Es Semara Geochemical Mapping Project

On August 27, 2002, the Chinese Government and the Government of Morocco signed an exchange of letters, which committed RMB 5 million of grant funding for the Guelmim-Es Semara Geochemical Mapping Project. These grant proceeds were drawn from an agreement (mostly likely an ETCA) that was signed by the two governments on February 5, 2002. The purpose of the project was to create a set of geochemical maps for the Guelmim-Es Semara (Arabic: كلميم السمارة‎) region, which was one of Morocco’s sixteen former regions from 1997 to 2015. The ultimate aim of this project was to facilitate the continued sale of Moroccan phosphate fertilizers to China and explore Morocco’s subsoil for other mining resources. Since 1958, Morocco has sold phosphate fertilizers to Sinochem, the leading producer and distributor of fertilizers in China. Xinjiang Baodi Mining Company (新疆宝地公司采 or 新疆宝地矿业股份有限公司) was the contractor responsible for implementation. The project commenced on April 29, 2003 and several official sources suggest that this project was completed; however, a precise implementation end date is not available.

Additional details

This project is also known as the Guelmim-Smara Geochemical Mapping Project. The Chinese project title is 3个地球化学填图的项目 or GUELMIM-SMARA地区地球化学填图项目 or 援摩洛哥三幅地球化学填图项目. The French project title is la cartographie géochimique de la région Guelmim-Smara. An article by "BBC Monitoring Middle East - Political" claims that the Guelmim-Es Semara Geochemical Mapping Project was supported by a loan agreement signed on February 5, 2002 (see Morocco, China sign several cooperation agreements.). In the database of Chinese loan commitments that SAIS-CARI published in July 2020, it also identifies this project as being supported by a $1 million (roughly equivalent to RMB 5 million) interest-free loan in 2002. However, multiple official sources refer to this project as being financed with an RMB 5 million grant, so AidData has set the flow variable to Grant and the flow_class variable to ODA-Like.

Number of official sources

6

Number of total sources

15