Morocco's trade balance deficit rose 8 percent to 152 billion dirhams ($ 16.7 billion) in the first nine months of this year, driven by higher oil prices on the international market.
According to a report by the Foreign Exchange Department supervising the Foreign Exchange, Morocco's merchandise trade totaled 555 billion dirhams by the end of September, during which exports increased by more than 31 billion dirhams and imports by 11 percent, or about 20 billion dirhams. The coverage index improved to 57 percent, while the industrial exports contributed to the improvement of Morocco's revenues from foreign currency, estimated at 310 billion dirhams, distributed between 201 billion trade exports, about 50 billion dollars of remittances from expatriates, 40 billion net tourism revenues and 19 billion foreign direct investments.
Car exports continued to lead by 49 billion dirhams of sales, mostly within the EU markets. Food and agricultural exports exceeded 41 billion dirhams and phosphate was 38 billion and exports of aircraft parts reached 10 billion dirhams.
Source (Al-Hayat newspaper, Edited)
