Matis aerospace company holds first administrative board meeting
Morocco, Business, 12/20/2001

MATIS (Morocco Aero-Technical Interconnect Systems) Aerospace company, a joint venture between Boeing Company, Moroccan carrier Royal Air Maroc (RAM) and French Labinal Snecma Group, that was set up last June, held the first meeting of its administrative board in Morocco lately.

The meeting appointed Benbrahim El Andaloussi chairman of the board and Christian Malavolti director general of the company and decided to launch the construction of the unit that will manufacture general-purpose wire bundles and supply the parts to Boeing Commercial Airplanes and to Labinal Snecma Group.

The manufacturing facility near Royal Air Maroc's technical base in the Nouaceur industrial area, near Casablanca, will be built over 5 hectares. The unit, to cost 50 million DH (about $ 4.34 million), will provide some 350 jobs and will start operating in the fall of 2002.

It has also been decided to increase the capital of the joint venture.

During the meeting, the delegates of Boeing and Labinal confirmed the two groups' determination to maintain their investments in Morocco.

MATIS Aerospace Company will generate up to 450 new jobs in the high-tech aerospace arena. The annual value of the joint venture's wire bundle work for Boeing and Labinal is estimated at $40 million, when exports start in 2003-2004.

The meeting was attended by Boeing vice-chairmen, Sedik Belyamani and James Morris, RAM chairman, Mohamed Berrada, Labinal chairman, Jean-Claude Lepage, and SNECMA director general, Yves Imbert. General-purpose wire bundles perform a variety of electrical functions and are installed directly into various sections of airplanes. Depending on its size, each Boeing airplane includes some 64.4 to 274 kilometers of wiring. MATIS Aerospace initially will supply wire bundles for the Boeing 737, 747, 757, 767 and 777 airplanes and various Labinal products. Future prospects could include serving as an after-market wire-bundle supplier to the world's airlines and other aerospace subcontracting work.

MATIS Aerospace will augment present wire-bundle production performed within Boeing and by Labinal, a Boeing supplier since 1998. Each of the three partner companies will own a third of the joint venture.

Previous Stories:
  Spanish toys chain opens shops in Morocco   (12/13/2001)
  Moroccan government and carrier sign contract-program   (11/28/2001)
  Moroccan phone directory issues electronic version   (11/14/2001)

Please add a link on your webiste pointing to ArabicNews.com and bookmark ArabicNews.com & subscribe to our daily email news bulletin.

Search