ولاية المركز الجهوي للاستثمار: ما يعهد به القانون إليه فعلياً، أبعد من الشباك الوحيد

Beyond the one-stop shop: two divisions, three families of duties, and a conciliation mandate that stayed on paper for years — a reading of the legal framework in its most recent version.

A framework mandate, set by law, not by practice

The CRI’s mandate is not an administrative practice that grew up over time: it is set out, in black and white, by Article 4 of Law No. 47-18, which tasks the CRI with “contributing to the implementation of State policy on investment development at the regional level, its promotion, and support to businesses”[1]. Article 18 of the same law structures this mandate into two distinct operational divisions within each CRI: the “Investor’s House” and the “Economic Impetus and Territorial Offer” division[2]. This two-division architecture, decided in 2019 and still in force today, is the key to understanding what a CRI actually does, beyond the image of a simple administrative counter.

Division 1 — The Investor’s House: the one-stop shop, in the literal sense

This first division covers what the public most readily associates with the CRI: assistance with business-creation formalities, support for investment project sponsors in obtaining the necessary authorizations, receiving and processing files in coordination with the relevant public bodies, dematerializing procedures through a regional electronic platform, monitoring project progress under the governor’s supervision, and disseminating public information on regional potential, the applicable legal framework, available industrial zones and incentive schemes[3]. This is the division that has run the CRI-Invest platform since 2020, presented in our Brief No. 1.

Division 2 — Economic Impetus and Territorial Offer: beyond the one-stop shop

The second division is less visible to the general public but just as central in the text of the law: regional economic intelligence through the collection of macroeconomic data, building and disseminating a database of investment opportunities, contributing to the design of regional development and economic-promotion strategies, studies on industrial zones, and formulating recommendations to government on the regional investment offer and administrative simplification[4]. In other words, the CRI is not merely a processor of procedures: the law entrusts it with a role in producing knowledge and proposing public policy at the regional level — a role that few investors, and in our experience few outside observers, clearly identify.

The least-known mandate: investor–administration conciliation

A third mandate, set out in Article 4, paragraph c) of the law, has remained the most discreet of the three: the CRI is tasked with a conciliation role aimed at the amicable settlement of disputes that may arise between an investor and a public administration during project execution[5]. Unlike the two divisions above, this mandate long had no detailed procedure in the implementing texts: no deadline, no clearly identified body, and no avenue of appeal if conciliation failed.

Conciliation finally gets a procedure

It is precisely this gap that Decree No. 2-26-564 fills, seven years later — already presented in our Brief No. 1 and recently published in the Official Gazette: it establishes a ministerial appeal commission, chaired by the Head of Government, with a maximum 45-day deadline to rule on an appeal, a technical pre-review commission chaired by the Ministry of the Interior, and a secretariat also provided by that ministry[6]. Read in light of Article 4.c) of Law 47-18, this decree is therefore not just a text on CRUI governance: it gives, for the first time, a concrete procedure to the conciliation mandate entrusted to the CRI back in 2019 — a mandate that had existed on paper for seven years with no clearly defined implementation mechanism.

The WL Advisory perspective

A mandate broader than the counter it is known for: the law entrusts the CRI with a mandate considerably broader than the administrative-counter image usually attached to it — and in our view, this is an underleveraged strength of the system. The “Economic Impetus and Territorial Offer” division in particular gives the CRI legitimacy to produce regional analysis and to influence local investment policy, a function few centers exercise today to the extent the law allows.

Seven years between ambition and procedure: our reading, drawn from direct experience with this type of institutional mechanism: the conciliation mandate under Article 4.c) is the clearest example of the gap between the ambition of the founding text (2019) and its operational implementation, which took seven years to arrive (2026). This lag is not incidental — it signals that a mandate can exist legally without existing operationally as long as no implementing text gives it a procedure, a body and a deadline. This is a methodological point we recommend to any institution engaged in a similar reform: a mandate set out in a framework law should be accompanied, from the outset, by a timetable for implementing texts, failing which it remains an intention rather than an enforceable right for the investor.

A reading to cross-reference with Issue No. 3: our Brief No. 3, devoted to the CRUI, already documents the 2026 decree from the angle of governance and appeals against administrative decisions. This Brief shows that it should also be read as the first concrete implementation of the conciliation mandate itself — a cross-reading that few public analyses currently make.

ماذا يعني هذا بالنسبة لك

For an investor: your CRI is not only the entry point for your formalities — it is also, in theory, your point of contact for conciliation in the event of a dispute with an administration during project execution, and this avenue now has a formal 45-day procedure. For an institution or technical partner: the “Economic Impetus and Territorial Offer” division is the right entry point for any collaboration involving regional data, sector studies, or the design of a territorial attractiveness strategy — a legal mandate that few CRIs communicate as clearly as their front desk.

المصادر

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[1]Law No. 47-18 reforming the Regional Investment Centers, Article 4.

[2]Law No. 47-18, Article 18.

[3]Law No. 47-18, Article 4, paragraph a).

[4]Law No. 47-18, Article 4, paragraph b).

[5]Law No. 47-18, Article 4, paragraph c).

[6]Decree No. 2-26-564 amending and supplementing Decree No. 2-19-67, Official Gazette (Bulletin Officiel) No. 7530 of July 30, 2026.