Rabat – Moroccans residing abroad (MREs) have sent back nearly $3.3 billion (MAD 28.8 billion) in remittances in the first four months of the year.
The total has seen an increase of 45.3% compared to the same period last year, a time marked by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first four months of 2020, MREs sent back $2.3 billion (MAD 19.8 billion), according to the Moroccan Bureau de Change.
Remittances have shown gradual growth in 2021 compared to last year. This January, for example, remittances reached nearly $660 million (MAD 5.9 billion), which indicates an 8.8% increase compared to January of last year, when the remittances reached $604 million (MAD 5.4 billion).
Remittances constitute a significant proportion of Morocco’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which in 2019 made up 6.2% of the country’s total GDP, according to figures from the World Bank. Most of the money comes from Europe, where most of the roughly five million Moroccan expats live.
Millions of MREs come back to visit Morocco every year, most of them arriving during the country’s Operation Marhaba, which in 2019 alone saw the return of 2.6 million Moroccans during the summer months.
In 2020, the operation was canceled due to the ongoing pandemic, and as for 2021, with the constantly evolving epidemiological situation, very little solid information has been shared with the general public.
It is not just Morocco where remittances have grown, as the flow of remittance grew by 2.3% across the whole of the Middle East and North Africa. Largely, this growth can be attributed to Morocco and Egypt, which in 2020, saw an increase of 6.5% and 11% respectively.
Egypt’s growth reached a “record high of nearly $30 billion in 2020,” according to World Bank data.
