THE REFORMATION ROLLS ON:

The Rise of the Maghreb: Airbus and Renault are among a wave of companies building plants along the Mediterranean's southern shore. (Carol Matlack and Stanley Reed, 3/06/09, Der Spiegel)

Sumitomo isn't the only company beating a path to the Maghreb, a swath of four developing countries along the Mediterranean's southern shore. Led by Morocco and Tunisia, the region of 84 million people is attracting serious investment-more than $30 billion over the past five years-to build everything from auto and aerospace factories to five-star resorts and call centers for multinationals.

Even Algeria and Libya, long shunned on the international stage, are starting to revive their stagnant economies. Both are opening up to foreign investment and, with pipelines under the Mediterranean, have become important suppliers of natural gas to Europe as it seeks alternatives to politically unstable Russia. The Maghreb countries all "have very different politics, but they're on track, moving in the same direction," says André Azoulay, a former French bank executive who is an economic adviser to Morocco's King Mohammed VI.

The Maghreb-"place of the sunset" in Arabic-is likely to keep expanding in spite of the global economic turmoil. Growth forecasts for 2009 range from 3.7 percent in Tunisia to more than 5 percent in Libya. Euler Hermes, a consultancy that analyzes investment risk, now rates Tunisia and Morocco as safer than Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. "While the (Maghreb countries) will certainly be adversely affected by the downturn, they are robust enough to survive," says Euler Hermes analyst Andrew Atkinson.

The Maghreb's appeal is obvious. It's in the Continent's backyard: Tangier lies just eight miles from Spain across the Strait of Gibraltar. The region's governments are relatively stable and business-friendly. And it's cheap, with factory wages averaging $195 to $325 a month. Compare that with the average $671 monthly paid by French automaker Renault at its Dacia Logan factory in Romania.