Rabat – Morocco is leading North African countries in economic freedom, the Heritage Foundation has indicated in its latest recently published 2023 Index of Economic Freedom.
While Morocco stands out regionally, the North African country trails behind globally, sitting below international standards. With a score of 58.4 points, Morocco features in the “Mostly Unfree” countries category, ranking 97th worldwide.
Ranked 7th in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, Morocco’s score is “approximately the world average,” indicated the report.
The index measures economic freedom against 12 factors grouped into four main categories: Rule of Law, Government Size, Regulatory Efficiency, and Open Markets.
It attributed the North African country’s “gradual but notable” progress to several factors, including Morocco’s economic reforms which have “encouraged private-sector dynamism.”
Noting that Morocco’s score dropped by 0.8 points compared to 2022, the report highlighted some of the challenges the country needs to address. These include the labor market’s lack of flexibility and the fact that an overwhelming number of the labor force “remains marginalized in the informal sector.”
Besides Morocco, the “Mostly Unfree” category features more than 30 countries, including its neighbors Mauritania (117th worldwide) and Tunisia (132nd).
Read also: Morocco Trails Behind in Global Economic Freedom Index
Singapore and Switzerland lead the global ranking as the only two countries featuring in the “Free” category. The two nations received an 83.9 and an 83.8 score respectively.
Meanwhile, the “Mostly Free” category features a total of 12 countries, including New Zealand (78.9 score), the Netherlands (78.0), and South Korea (73.7), among others.
The index placed a total of 28 countries in the “Moderately Free” section, including the United Kingdom (69.9 score), Israel (68.9), and Qatar (68.6), among others.
The “Repressed” category, which features countries that received a score lower than 50 points, includes Egypt (151st worldwide) and Algeria (168th). The two African nations received scores of 49.6 and 43.2 respectively.
North Korea featured at the very bottom of the ranking among the 176 listed countries. The Asian country received a 2.9 score.
The index, however, did not include the ranking of eight countries, which are mostly in a state of war or crisis, due to a lack of data. These include Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen.
The Washington-based think tank defined economic freedom as the “fundamental right of every human to control his or her own labor and property,” arguing that economically free societies enable individuals to “work, produce, consume, and invest in any way they please.”
