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Rabat – Morocco’s central bank, Bank Al-Maghrib (BAM), asserted that the country’s macroeconomic risks are staying generally moderate.
“In an uncertain international environment marked by persisting trade and geopolitical tensions, rising protectionism, Brexit concerns, and market volatility, macroeconomic risks remain generally moderate,” BAM said in a statement on Monday.
Macroeconomic risk, according to the Global Risk Institute, deals with “identifying trends, political influences and market volatility that may predict the impact these may have on financial markets and the economy.”
BAM issued the statement after the eighth meeting of the Coordination and Systemic Risk Monitoring Committee (CSRMC), on Tuesday in Rabat.
The committee, which analyzed the risk mapping of the Moroccan financial system, stated that the current account deficit regarding external accounts is expected to gradually shrink over the forecast horizon, after widening to 4.4 percent of GDP in 2018, Maghreb Arab Press (MAP) reported.
Morocco’s net international reserves, according to the BAM’s statement, would continue to provide more than five months’ worth of imports of goods and services.
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According to the Global Risk Institute, “There are a few different types of Macroeconomic Risk that affect the financial sector from economic risks that affect stocks, economic and political risks that affect governments including unemployment, inflation, prices, export/import, and market factors that can influence investment, assets and company evaluations.”
The committee expects Morocco’s economic growth to have slowed down to 3.3 percent for 2018 compared to 4.1 percent in 2017. This is mainly due to the deceleration in agricultural value-added production and the slow recovery of non-agricultural activities, “which have not yet reached their pre-crisis growth levels.”
Concerning public finances, the budget deficit is expected to have widened to 3.7 percent of GDP in 2018 and continue, according to BAM’s forecasts, to remain at that level in the medium term.
