RABAT  - French car maker Renault will double production at its Casablanca plant to 160,000 cars annually by 2022, state news agency MAP said on Thursday.

The production target was revealed by Renault chairman and chief executive Carlos Ghosn at a meeting with King Mohammed VI in Marrakesh, the agency said.

The production increase at the SOMACA plant in Casablanca will help Renault manufacture 500,000 cars annually in Morocco, including 340,000 from its larger Tangier plant.

Another French carmaker, Peugeot, said last month that it would start production next year at its site near the coastal city of Kenitra with a target of 200,000 vehicles annually by 2020.

The government has said that it plans to increase to 1 million the number of cars made in Morocco and to boost the automotive sector's revenue to 200 million dirhams ($30 billion) annually by 2025.

It also wants to raise the local sourcing rate to 80 percent by 2020 from an estimated 50 percent.

The automotive sector was Morocco's largest industrial exporting sector last year, with exports worth 70 billion dirhams.

Up to September 2018, the sector topped Morocco’s exports with a rise of 14.6 percent to 48.813 billion dirhams compared with the same period last year.

( $1= 9.537 Moroccan dirhams)

(Reporting by Ahmed Eljechtimi Editing by Toni Reinhold) ((ahmed.eljechtimi@thomsonreuters.com;))