The Central Bank of Morocco revealed that the foreign currency reserves of Morocco will reach the level of 246 billion dirhams (26 billion dollars) during the current year, with the expectation that Morocco will receive 2.2 billion dirhams (232 million dollars) of support from the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, and that the government will go to the international financial market again to borrow 10.7 billion dirhams ($1.13 billion).
The Central Bank of Morocco expected that the level of the government budget deficit will rise this year to 4% of its GDP, as a result of the extraordinary expenses resulting from the consequences of the spread of the Corona virus and the measures taken to combat it.
According to the MCB, the financial conditions will remain flexible on the whole, indicating that it has expanded the scope of unconventional measures within the framework of the merged program to support and finance companies. The Central Bank directed that, given the expected effects of this program, the growth of bank lending to sectors of non-financial activities will witness a growth of 4.5 percent during 2020 and a rate of 5.3 in 2021. It also expected the exchange rate to stabilize during the current year after the rise in the value of the dirham by 1.1 percent during the year 2019.
Regarding the growth rate of the national economy during the current year, the Central Bank of Morocco expected that it will not exceed 2.3%, due to the decrease in the added value of the agricultural sector by (minus) 2.7% due to the scarcity and poor distribution of rain, in addition to the slowdown in the growth of the non-agricultural sectors to the level of 2.9 % due to the effects of Corona and its reflection on the external demand directed to Morocco.
Source (Al-Sharq Al-Awsat Newspaper, Edited)
