The Moroccan Production Calendar: Ramadan, Summer and Planning Around Them

Lead time is not a constant. Placing the same order in October and in April will get you
two different delivery dates, and the reason has nothing to do with how busy we are.

Buyers who plan around the Moroccan year get their goods on time. Buyers who treat lead
time as a fixed number get surprised twice a year, reliably.

Ramadan

Ramadan is the single largest factor in the Moroccan production calendar. It moves
earlier by roughly eleven days each year on the Gregorian calendar. In 2027 it falls
approximately in February; in 2028, approximately in January.

During Ramadan, working hours shorten across the country. This is normal, expected, and
built into how every Moroccan business plans. Output during the month typically runs at
somewhere around 60 to 70 percent of normal.

Eid al-Fitr at the end brings several days of full holiday, and in practice the week
around it is effectively non-productive as families travel.

What to do: add three to four weeks to any lead time that spans
Ramadan and Eid. Better still, place orders so production completes before it starts. A
supplier who quotes you an unchanged lead time across Ramadan either has not looked at a
calendar or is going to be late.

Eid al-Adha

Roughly two months after Eid al-Fitr, and a significant holiday in its own right —
typically two to three days official, but with substantial travel around it. Plan for
around a week of reduced output.

August

Two things coincide. Moroccan workshops take summer holidays, and so does most of
Europe. Our own production slows, and so does everyone you would need on the other side —
freight forwarders, customs brokers and your own warehouse are all running light.

What to do: avoid scheduling a critical delivery for late August or the
first days of September. If you need goods for an autumn season, aim for production
finishing in July.

The harvest cycle

This one is invisible to most buyers and it matters.

Doum palm is harvested seasonally, mainly across the summer months. It is then dried and
processed before it can be woven. That means fibre availability and quality vary through
the year, and the best material for fine work is generally available in the months after
processing.

We hold stock to smooth this out, but a very large order placed at the wrong point in
the cycle can run into material constraints on a specific fibre grade or colour. For
orders above a few thousand units, tell us early and we will secure the material rather
than discovering the problem at week three.

The weekly and national rhythm

Two smaller factors that occasionally surprise buyers scheduling tightly.

Friday. Friday midday prayers create a longer break in most Moroccan
workshops. Friday is a working day, but it is a shorter one. Over a long production run
this is already inside our lead times; it only matters if someone is counting on a
half-day of output at the very end of a schedule.

National holidays. Morocco observes several fixed-date public holidays
through the year, including Throne Day at the end of July and Independence Manifesto Day
in January. Individually they cost a day. Where one lands adjacent to a weekend, it
usually costs a long weekend of output.

None of these will move a delivery date on its own. Stacked with Ramadan or August,
they are the difference between a comfortable schedule and a tight one.

The seasonal demand peak

Straw bags are a spring–summer product for the northern hemisphere. Which means every
buyer in Europe and North America wants their goods delivered between February and May,
and therefore every buyer wants production between November and March.

That window is genuinely capacity-constrained, and it now collides with Ramadan for the
next several years as Ramadan moves through the winter months.

The practical consequence: orders placed in September and October for
spring delivery get comfortable slots. Orders placed in December for the same delivery are
competing for compressed capacity against a shortened working month. It is the same order
and the same price, and one arrives on time.

A planning calendar

In-season reorders

April and May are quietly the best months to reorder. Ramadan has passed, the spring
rush has shipped, and capacity is available. If you are chasing a style that is selling
through, this is when you can get it fastest.

Combined with short freight times into Europe, an April reorder can realistically be on
a shop floor within the same season — which is the whole argument for sourcing close to
your market. Our
merchandising
guide covers how to spot a reorder candidate early enough to act on it.

What we will tell you

When we quote a lead time, it accounts for whatever falls inside the window — Ramadan,
Eid, August, harvest. If a date is not achievable we say so at quotation rather than
agreeing to it and explaining later.

That is not a courtesy. A supplier who accepts an impossible date has simply moved the
problem to the point where it is most expensive for you to solve.

If you are planning a season now, send your target delivery dates through the
contact page and we will tell you the latest date you can
place the order and still make them.