Rabat – Abdellatif Jouahri, the governor of Bank Al Maghrib (BAM), Morocco’s central bank, has expressed satisfaction with the country’s efforts to mitigate the economic crisis triggered by COVID-19 and the repercussions of the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
The top Moroccan banker presented BAM’s annual report on Morocco’s economic outlook before King Mohammed VI on Saturday prior to the monarch’s Throne Day speech.
Briefing the King on the annual report, Jouahri expressed satisfaction with Morocco’s efforts to tackle the escalating global economic crisis despite the “difficult international situation.”
He said that the Moroccan economy was able to achieve a “remarkable” performance in 2021, reaching a growth of 7.9%.
Attributing this encouraging performance to the success of the COVID vaccination campaign, among others, Jouahri pointed out that the campaign contributed to Morocco’s economic recovery program by leading a rebound that generated a “sharp rise in tax revenues.”
The increase in tax revenues helped reduce the budget deficit to 5.9% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), BAM’s report documented, adding that foreign trade and the critical remittances from the Moroccan diaspora also played an important role.
Jouahri recalled that remittances from the diaspora reached MAD 93.7 billion last year, helping to contain the current account deficit to 2.3% of GDP.
“The official reserve assets of Bank Al-Maghrib thus amounted to the equivalent of 6 months of imports,” he explained.
External pressures on the Moroccan economy led to an increase in the inflation rate which reached 1.4% instead of 0.7% a year earlier, Jouahri argued.
To mitigate the crisis, Jouahri said, BAM renewed measures that were adopted on the heels of the COVID crisis in 2020 and contributed to the continuation of the downward trend in interest rates.
“Morocco succeeded in resisting the crisis and ensuring a smooth return to normality of economic and social activity,” Jouahri said.
He added, however, that the far-reaching repercussions of the Ukraine-Russia conflict threaten to undo much of Morocco’s positive economic performance over the past two years. The soaring commodity prices have blurred the Moroccan economy’s largely encouraging performance, leading to a gradual “deterioration of economic outlook and heightened uncertainty,” Jouahri stressed.
