Insight
Quão grande é o comércio de chá marroquino?
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 3043,4 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.
Quem regula as importações de chá para Marrocos?
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.
A ONSSA, em resposta às preocupações nacionais sobre os resíduos de pesticidas no chá vendido no Marrocos, decidiu desde então reforçar especificamente os limites de resíduos aplicáveis ao chá e notificou à Organização Mundial do Comércio os limites máximos revisados de resíduos aplicáveis ao chá importado para o mercado interno e para reexportação.
O efeito prático para os exportadores é que um lote que cumpre os limites nacionais chineses não cumpre automaticamente os marroquinos.
Por que é uma oportunidade um regime mais rigoroso de resíduos?
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 4024,6 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.
Que documentos é necessário para um carregamento de chá no Marrocos?
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.
| Documento | Emissão por | Nota |
|---|---|---|
| Faturas comerciais e lista de embalagens | Exportador | O código de grau e o sufixo devem corresponder ao contrato |
| Conhecimento de embarque | Transportador | Casablanca é o principal porto de entrada |
| Certificado de origem | Câmara de Comércio / Aduanas | Determina o tratamento preferencial de direitos |
| Certificado fitosanitário | Autoridade de proteção fitosanitária do país exportador | Confirm whether required for this tea shipment |
| Certificado de saúde | Autoridade competente do país exportador | Confirm applicable food-safety evidence with the importer |
| Relatório de ensaio de resíduos de pesticidas | Laboratório acreditado | Teste contra o limite marroquino, não só o chinês |
| Certificado de análise | Laboratório de exportação ou credenciado | Umidade ≤ 7,0%, cinzas, quebradas e ventilações |
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.