RABAT, 20 October — Economic developments of Morocco have been quite positive given the challenging global economy.
During 2002, the Moroccan government is extending 800 million Moroccan dirhams, nearly $80 million, to be used for increasing animal production, developing farming land and purchasing agriculture equipment. The Exchange Office in Rabat announced last month, an increase in Moroccan exports by 11.5 percent during the first half of 2002 reaching 43.52 billion dirhams ($4.3 million) compared with 39.03 million dirhams ($3.9 million) during the same period of 2001, while imports decreased by 2.5 percent in the same period. This rise helped relieve the deficit of the Moroccan trade balance, which came down to 17.83 billion dirhams ($1.7 million) by the end of June 2002, in comparison with 23.88 billion dirhams ($2.3 billion) at the end of the first half of last year. Morocco’s energy imports bill also went down by 14.5 percent with 9.34 billion dirhams ($0.93 billion) during the first half of 2002, compared to 10.92 billion dirhams ($1.09) during the same period of last year.
In a report released in June by the African Development Bank, Morocco, with an estimated GDP of $34 billion, ranks as Africa’s fifth largest economic power, accounting for 6.2 percent of the continent’s total GDP.
Last year, Morocco received $3 billion in foreign Investments, representing 60 percent of the total foreign capital flow to the North African region. Morocco hopes to lure $2.5 billion worth of foreign capital by the end of 2002, half of which will come from selling off several government owned companies.
Despite all this progress, one Moroccan out of five lives in poverty, the Center of Demographic Studies and Researches (CERD) said in its 2001 National Report on Population Policy. In 1990 poverty rose from 13.1 percent to 19 percent in 1999, the report said, adding that the rise is due to several factors such as the repeated and successive years of drought and the higher unemployment rates during the nineties,
The rural population, which makes up to 46.6 percent of the overall population, represents 65.80 percent of the poor, the report said. Moroccan government raises great hope in the free trade accord with the United States, which probably will be signed early next year. Morocco will be the fifth developing country and the second Arab state, after Jordan, to sign such an agreement with the United States. The main advantage of the agreement for Morocco is the diversification of its outlets and markets. It is worth mentioning that trade between Morocco and US grew by 60 percent during the first half of 2002.