Moroccan Dirham Records 1.14% Depreciation Against Euro

Rabat – The Moroccan Dirham (MAD) lost 1.14% of its value against the Euro while it appreciated by 0.29% against the US dollar between July 14 to 16, according to data from Bank Al-Maghrib (BAM).

Morocco’s treasury reserve on July 15 stood at MAD 331.2 billion ($32 billion), showing an increase of 1.8% from a week before and a 10% year-on-year increase.

During the same period, the Casablanca stock exchange traded in the green, with the Masi index showing a weekly growth of 1.3%, under the 10.6% average since the start of the year.

The Masi performance is driven by the 4.7% growth within Morocco’s telecommunications sectors, followed by a 1.2% growth in the construction industry, and 0.8% growth in the banking sector.

However, Morocco’s transport and real estate sectors fell by 0.8% and 1.3% respectively, BAM noted.

The country’s overall trading volume increased from MAD 448.6 million ($43 million) to MAD 693.9 million ($68 million), including MAD 171.7 million ($16 million) under the initial public offering (IPO) of disty Technologies on the new alternative market dedicated to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Disty Technologies is the first company to enter the new alternative market of the Casablanca Stock Exchange.

Meanwhile, the daily average trading volume settled at MAD 48.1 million ($4 million), down from MAD 74.8 million ($7 million) recorded last week.

During this period, no auction operations were carried out on the foreign exchange market, the Central Bank says in its latest weekly bulletin.

Earlier in July, the euro hit parity with the US dollar for the first time in 20 years, before decreasing even further and dipping below its American counterpart.

The decrease was caused by repercussions of the Ukrainewar and the European Central Bank’s failure to hike interest rates to keep up with inflation.