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Renault and Nissan have signed a memorandum of understanding with the prime minister of Morocco to build a new industrial complex in the Tangier region. The centrepiece of the complex will be a car manufacturing plant that is intended to build 400,000 cars an year, with an initial capacity of 200,000 from 2010.

The total investment at the site is reckoned to be in the order of €600million, with €350 million for the first phase.

The memorandum was signed by Carlos Ghosn, president and CEO of both Renault and Nissan, with the Moroccan prime minister Driss Jettou.

The agreement commits the two sides at present only to a feasibility study for the industrial complex on a 300 ha site at the port of Tangier. But Ghosn said at the signing: "I would like Morocco to become a strategic global base at the highest competitive level worldwide in the Alliance's manufacturing system."

Any plant in Morocco would be managed by Renault, and would be used to make vehicles based on the low-cost Logan platform. It would also build a new-generation light commercial vehicle under the Nissan name. The aim would be to export more than 90 per cent of production.

The feasibility study is due to report before the end of 2007 and a general agreement to go ahead is likely then.