Rabat, December 17, 2012 (MAP)
Rabat, December 17, 2012 (MAP)
The “healthy” policies laid down by the Moroccan government have helped the country get “robust” macroeconomic results, former International monetary fund Rabat director, Jean-Francois Dauphin said here on Monday.
“The solidity of Morocco’s economic fundamentals and the healthy policies put in place have contributed to getting robust macroeconomic results,” Dauphin told a press conference following a visit by the IMF officials in the north African kingdom, recalling that these assets also helped Morocco get an IMF precautionary liquidity line of USD6.2bn last June.
The international financial institution’s forecasts set Morocco’s economic growth for 2012 at 3 per cent. It also predicts that the budget deficit would edge down to 6 per cent “thanks to the adjustment in June of the subsided products”, and the inflation to remain at 1.3 per cent, while the jobless rate is expected to “remain stable,” Dauphin said.
He said even if Morocco has “considerably advanced in terms of reinforcing growth and reducing poverty in the past decade,” the country has to put more efforts in fighting unemployment, especially of the youth, and in improving the social indices such as the illiteracy rate, and the equal access to health services and education.
Dauphin hailed the 2013 draft budget as “appropriate,” noting that the viability of the public finances hinges upon the implementation of key structural reforms allowing to generate budgetary leeway to improve social protection and invest more in human capital and infrastructure.
The IMF official insisted, in this regard, on the need to reform the subsidy regime, dismissing the present regime as “an inefficient in supporting the needy population.”
He suggested more flexibility in the exchange rate’s policy in order to enable Morocco to cushion more easily the exterior shocks.
