Moroccan Dirham Holds Steady Against Euro and Dollar as Reserves Dip Slightly

During this period, no foreign exchange auction was carried out, Bank Al-Maghrib (BAM) indicates, while specifying that as of August 13, 2021, the outstanding official reserve assets stood at 299.4 billion dirhams (MMDH), down 0.4% week-on-week and up 3.7% year-on-year.

BAM reports that an amount of 94.3 MMDH was injected, including 36.9 MMDH in the form of 7-day advances on call for tenders and 29.8 MMDH in the form of repurchase agreements, during the same period. Similarly, 27.5 MMDH were injected as part of the SME financing support programs.

On the interbank market, the average daily trading volume stood at 3.2 MMDH. As for the interbank rate, it averaged 1.5%. At the August 18 call for tenders (value date August 19), the central bank injected 39.5 MMDH in the form of 7-day advances.

On the stock market, the MASI appreciated by 0.4%, thus bringing its underperformance since the beginning of the year to 11.8%. This development is explained by the increases in the indices of the "Real Estate" sector by 12.1%, the "Building and construction materials" sector by 1.6% and the "Telecommunications" sector by 0.4%. Conversely, the indices of the electricity and chemicals sectors fell by 2.3% and 2% respectively.

As for the overall trading volume, it amounted to 380.8 million dirhams (MDH), after 402.4 million dirhams (MDH) the previous week. Regarding the average daily volume on the central equity market, it stood at 76.1 MDH against 96.8 MDH the previous week.