The Moroccan government signed an investment agreement with Gotion for the gigafactory with initial battery capacity of 20 GWh.

Gotion High-tech (SHE: 002074), the Volkswagen-backed Chinese battery giant, will build Morocco's first electric vehicle (EV) battery gigafactory for a total cost of 12.8 billion dirhams ($1.3 billion), the Moroccan government said on Thursday, according to a Reuters report today.

The Moroccan government signed an investment agreement with Gotion for the gigafactory, which will have an initial battery capacity of 20 GWh, the report said, citing a statement from the Moroccan prime minister's office.

Gotion plans to increase the plant's capacity to 100 GWh and the final investment could reach $6.5 billion, the prime minister's office said.

Morocco's geographic proximity to Europe, free trade agreements with major markets in the European Union and the United States, and an existing automotive sector make it attractive to Chinese EV battery makers, the Reuters report noted.

Morocco has production plants for automakers Stellantis and Renault, with a total capacity of 700,000 vehicles per year, as well as a group of local suppliers, according to the report.

Gotion is one of the world's largest battery makers, ranking ninth globally with a 2.2 percent share of the world's installed base of power batteries in January-April, according to South Korean market researcher SNE Research.

The Chinese battery maker is backed by Volkswagen, which increased its stake to 26.47 percent in December 2021, making it its largest shareholder.

Gotion has a battery production facility in Göttingen in central Germany, its first in Europe, which saw the first locally produced battery roll off the production line on September 16, 2023.

The company's battery plants in Thailand and the US both saw their respective first locally produced battery packs roll off the line last December.

By 2025, Gotion's global capacity is planned to reach 300 GWh, of which 100 GWh is planned for overseas capacity, Gotion's chairman, Li Zhen, had previously said.

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