From USAToday. Story by Greg Gardner, Detroit Free Press.

Ford is expanding its presence in North Africa with new sales and purchasing offices, plans to double parts exports, and the introduction of seven new vehicles.

Casablanca, Morocco, will be home to a new regional sales office as Ford plans to open 13 new dealerships in North Africa this year, including eight in Morocco.

The new purchasing office will be in Tangier, Morocco. Ford plans to more than double the volume of parts from suppliers based in North Africa, primarily in Morocco, over the next three years, many for export to its huge assembly plant in Valencia, Spain.

The automaker has invested about $2.5 billion to increase capacity in Valencia to build 450,000 vehicles a year with the flexibility for six different nameplates including the Mondeo/Fusion), Kuga (Escape), S-Max, Galaxy, Tourneo Connect and Transit Connect commercial vans.

“In order to support our production expansion just across the Mediterranean in Valencia, the amount of parts Ford sources in Morocco and North Africa will increase exponentially,” said Kalyana Sivagnanam, director, Ford Middle East & North Africa, which is now a standalone business unit within Ford. “This translates into thousands of indirect jobs and millions of dollars in investments.”

“Morocco is a great place to do business,” Sivagnanam said. “Morocco has a very skilled and motivated workforce, a growing automotive supplier ecosystem, access to ports, free and fair trade agreements and a very pro-business mindset,” Sivagnanam said in a release.

Read more at USAToday.