Moroccan Dirham Gains Against Euro, Falls vs Dollar as Central Bank Boosts Reserves

Bank Al-Maghrib (BAM) carried out foreign exchange purchase auctions from September 20 to 22. In total, 671 million dollars, the equivalent of 6 billion dirhams (MMDH), were retained, the central bank said in its weekly indicator bulletin. BAM specifies that as of September 17, 2021, the outstanding official reserve assets stood at 311.9 billion dirhams (MMDH), down 0.2% from the previous week and up 4.4% year-on-year.

The central bank reports that an amount of 95.2 MMDH was injected, including 36.6 MMDH in the form of 7-day advances on call for tenders and 30.9 MMDH in the form of repurchase agreements, during the same period. Similarly, 26.7 MMDH and 1 MMDH were injected respectively under the SME financing support programs and for foreign exchange swap operations.

On the interbank market, the average daily trading volume stood at 2.9 MMDH. As for the interbank rate, it averaged 1.5%. At the call for tenders on September 22 (value date September 23), BAM injected 30.5 MMDH in the form of 7-day advances.

On the stock market, the MASI appreciated by 0.6%, bringing its performance since the beginning of the year to 14.9%. This development is explained by the increases in the indices of the "Building and Construction Materials" sectors by 1.6%, "Banks" by 0.6% and "Transport Services" by 3.8%. Conversely, the indices of the "Real Estate" and "Mining" sectors fell by 5.4% and 1.1% respectively.

As for the overall trading volume, it amounted to 945.2 million dirhams (MDH) after 1.1 MMDH the previous week. Regarding the average daily volume on the central equity market, it stood at 176.2 MDH against 227.5 MDH the previous week.