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Friday, March 29, 2024

IMF Welcomes Morocco’s “Targeted Measures” to Mitigate Soaring Prices

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) welcomed on Wednesday the “targeted measures” adopted by Morocco to support the economy, especially in the face of soaring energy prices.

“The Moroccan government is now undertaking a set of targeted measures, including support for the transport sector of people and goods to relieve the rise in energy prices on production,” said Director of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Department at the IMF, Jihad Azour, who was speaking at a press conference on the Regional economic outlook for MENA.

Mr. Azour also pointed out the measures deployed to “expand the range of support put in place during the pandemic to alleviate the impact on certain social categories, in addition to the work underway to upgrade social policy and actions to revive the economic sectors most affected by the health crisis, including aviation and the automotive industry”.

In 2022, Morocco had to face a drought that had a “negative impact” on the agricultural campaign whilst suffering, like the rest of the world, the consequences of the Ukrainian crisis, which caused a surge in commodity prices, including oil, said Azour.

The IMF expert also mentioned “the indirect impact of this crisis on markets with which Morocco has close trade ties, like European countries”.

According to the IMF, these factors have prompted the Bretton Woods institution to lower, in its semi-annual report on the “World Economic Outlook” published last week, its growth projections for the Moroccan economy to 1.1% in 2022 against 3% previously expected.

During his press briefing, the IMF director for the MENA region was keen to point out that the Moroccan economy, which was “very affected” by the pandemic in 2020, was able to recover quickly in 2021.

“It is probably one of the countries that has experienced one of the fastest recoveries,” he said, stressing that this recovery is the result of “important measures undertaken by the Moroccan government.”

“Morocco was one of the first countries in the region, outside the Gulf Cooperation Council, to succeed in its vaccination campaign, while the government and Bank Al-Maghrib have initiated a series of measures to protect economic sectors to secure the ability of institutions and companies to resume their economic activities,” he said.

For the IMF official, these actions have facilitated the resumption of economic activity while allowing the Kingdom to access global financial markets at “very favorable” rates.

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