Moroccan Dirham Strengthens Against Euro and Dollar, Central Bank Reports

During this period, no auction operation was carried out on the foreign exchange market, BAM indicates, while specifying that as of December 11, 2020, the outstanding official reserve assets stood at 291.1 billion dirhams (MMDH), down 0.1% from the previous week, and up 16.4% year-on-year.

BAM reports that an amount of 104.4 MMDH was injected, including 39.6 MMDH in the form of 7-day advances on call for tenders and 23.9 MMDH in the form of repurchase agreements during the same period. Similarly, 33.6 MMDH and 7.4 MMDH were injected respectively under the TPME financing support programs and for foreign exchange swap operations.

On the interbank market, the average daily trading volume stood at 5.5 billion. As for the interbank rate, it averaged 1.5%. At the call for tenders on December 16 (value date December 17), the central bank injected an amount of 38.5 billion dirhams in the form of 7-day advances.

On the stock market, the MASI appreciated by 3%, thus bringing its underperformance since the beginning of the year to 6.2%. This development is explained by the increases in the sectoral indices of "banks" by 3.8%, "buildings and construction materials" by 2.2% and "agri-food" by 4.2%. Conversely, the indices of "electricity", "portfolio companies and holdings", "transport" and "forestry and paper" experienced declines of 0.4% and 0.3% respectively.

As of December 18, the US dollar was worth 8.891 dirhams, while the euro was traded at 10.893 dirhams.