Rabat – Low- and medium-high technology products make up 80 percent of Moroccan manufacturing exports, says the Directorate of Financial Studies and Forecasting (DEPF), based on statistics produced over the past 15 years.
Technological development is being seen as a key factor in improving a country’s productivity, competitiveness, and growth. Since the 1980s, the increase in technological innovations, along with the influx of new entrants into world markets, has exacerbated competition between economies. From now on, the position of any country in the world economy depends on its capacity to innovate and invent.
Faced with this new global economic environment, Morocco has embarked on a process of structural transformation in order to support its technological competitiveness, implementing appropriate sectoral policies and promoting of internationally oriented professions. These ambitious sectoral strategies have reinforced the emergence of growth-oriented businesses which, moreover, have contributed significantly to the modernization of the national industrial fabric and to the strengthening of the technological content of its exports.
According to the DEFP, the technological content of Moroccan manufacturing exports has improved considerably over the last fifteen years, following their structural transformation.
“The share of the former has fallen by 22.4 percent to 37 percent in 2015, against 59.5 percent in 2000, in favor of the share of medium-high-tech second-hand which increased, continuously over the period by 28 percent, reaching 46.2 percent at the end of 2015, compared with 18.2 percent in 2000,” noted the DEPF in a recent publication on “The technological content of Morocco’s manufacturing exports: evolution and comparative analysis.”
According to the DEPF, which operates under the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the share of manufactured products with medium-high technology has increased from 23 percent on average over the period 2000-2007 to 40.7 percent over the 2008-2015 period, thus exceeding the world average which is establish at 34.4 percent.
This change was mainly due to the increase in the share of phosphate exports, from 11 percent of Morocco’s total exports to 17 percent between the two periods, as well as that of vehicles from 0 to 5 percent and electric appliances equipment from 6 to 11 percent, explained the DEPF, noting that Morocco’s market share of medium-high-tech products has doubled from 0.08 to 0.16 percent.
In the case of exports of high-tech manufactured goods, the share of imports declined from an average of 10.2 percent between 2000 and 2007 to 6.1 percent in the second period, compared with 24.9 percent and 22.4 percent worldwide.
However, the DEPF asserted that, despite a downward trend, the share of low-tech products remained high, standing at around 41.3 percent on average between 2008 and 2015, compared with 16 percent at the global level.
This decline, the publication explains, is attributed to a 20 percent decline in the manufactured clothing sector of total Moroccan exports on average over the period 2000-2007, to 11 percent on average over the period 2008-2015.
For medium- and low-technology products, consisting mainly of residual petroleum products and miscellaneous iron and steel products, their share remained relatively low compared to the world average, with only 11.9 percent compared with 27.2 percent at the global level between 2008 and 2015.
The DEPF reports concludes by noting that exports from the manufacturing sector account for 64.4 percent of the total Moroccan exports. In 2015, this sector generated an added value of more than MAD 154 billion at current prices, which constitutes more than 15.7 percent of the GDP.
