Insight
Quelle est la taille du commerce du thé au Maroc ?
Morocco imported 91 000 tonnes of Chinese tea in 2025, up 13,4%, worth USD 280 million, up 14,7%. That is the single largest destination for Chinese tea. 99,85% of it was green tea — mostly gunpowder and Chunmee grades, brewed with sugar and mint in the daily atay ritual. The average price was USD 3 043,4 per tonne.
That concentration has a consequence: Morocco took more than a fifth of China's tea export volume in 2025, so its regulatory decisions reach the whole gunpowder and Chunmee supply chain.
Qui réglemente les importations de thé au Maroc ?
ONSSA — the Office National de Sécurité Sanitaire des Produits Alimentaires — is Morocco's food safety authority and the body that sets and enforces pesticide maximum residue limits on imported tea. Order 156-14, published in Bulletin Officiel 6322bis on 1 January 2015, established the MRL framework. Product found non-conforming at control is refused access to the national market.
Depuis, ONSSA a décidé de resserrer les limites du thé spécifiquement, suite à la préoccupation intérieure concernant les résidus de pesticides dans le thé vendu au Maroc, et a notifié à l'Organisation mondiale du commerce les limites maximales de résidus révisées du thé importé pour le marché intérieur et pour la réexportation.
L'effet pratique pour les exportateurs est que les lots conformes aux limites nationales chinoises ne sont pas automatiquement conformes à celles du Maroc.
Pourquoi un régime de résidus plus strict est-il une opportunité ?
A tighter residue regime re-sorts the supplier field. When Morocco tightens residue limits, tea already produced to EU or organic standards — which is typically destined elsewhere — becomes eligible and competitive in Morocco, while suppliers who cannot document residue performance lose access to the largest single market in the trade. Compliance stops being a cost line and becomes a qualification.
Price data alone cannot show what compliance is worth: Senegal paid USD 4 024,6 per tonne in 2025 against Morocco's USD 3,043.4, but both are averages that mix grade, packing and contract terms. What is certain is that a lot without residue evidence for the destination cannot be sold into it at any price.
Quels sont les documents dont un envoi de thé au Maroc a besoin ?
The shipment file should be agreed with the Moroccan importer and customs broker for the actual product: invoice, packing list, transport document, origin evidence and any applicable plant-health, food-safety and laboratory documents. Check the current ONSSA control requirements before shipping. Food labels for sale in Morocco need the mandatory information in Arabic; another language may be added, but French is not a universal second-language requirement.
| Documents | Édité par | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Liste de factures et d'emballages commerciaux | Exporteur | Le code de classe et le suffixe doivent correspondre au contrat |
| Connaissement | Transporteur | Casablanca est le principal port d'entrée |
| Certificat d'origine | Chambre de commerce / douane | Détermine le traitement préférentiel du droit |
| Certificat phytosanitaire | Autorité de protection des plantes du pays d'exportation | Confirm whether required for this tea shipment |
| Certificat de santé | Autorités compétentes du pays d'exportation | Confirm applicable food-safety evidence with the importer |
| Rapport d'essai des résidus de pesticides | Laboratoire accrédité | Test contre la frontière marocaine, pas seulement celle chinoise |
| Certificat d'analyse | Laboratoire d'exportateur ou accrédité | Humidité ≤ 7,0%, cendres, brisées et soufflées |
Who does what when tea is imported from China into Morocco?
The Moroccan importer is the party ONSSA and customs deal with: it lodges the import, presents the goods and documents for sanitary control and answers for the Arabic label. The exporter supplies the goods to the agreed specification with the invoice, packing list, transport document, origin evidence and the test reports the contract names. The residue standard is Morocco's, so testing is specified against the Moroccan limit before shipment.
Agree in the contract who arranges each document and test, and send draft documents to the importer for checking before loading. A document the importer cannot use at the border is the slowest problem to fix once the container has sailed.