Moroccan Dirham Weakens Against Euro and Dollar, Official Reserves Rise

The foreign exchange market did not record any auction operations during the period of May 21 to 27, BAM said in its latest weekly indicator bulletin. The indicators specify that as of May 22, 2020, official reserve assets stood at 287.7 billion dirhams (MMDH), up 0.9% week-on-week and 22.1% year-on-year.

In total, 36.4 billion dirhams in the form of 7-day advances on call for tenders were injected by the central bank, while the central bank injected 37.3 MMDH in the form of 7-day advances during the call for tenders on May 27. "The total outstanding interventions stood at 103.7 MMDH, including 43.4 billion in the form of repurchase agreements, 21.1 billion under the TPME financing support program and 2.8 MMDH from foreign exchange swap operations".

According to the indicators published by Bank Al-Maghrib, the interbank rate averaged 2% and the daily trading volume was 4.5 MMDH. During the same week, the MASI recorded a 4.5% increase on the stock market, thus showing its underperformance since the beginning of the year of 18.4%. This favored an increase in the indices of the "buildings and construction materials" sectors of 9.5%, "banks" of 5.4% and "agri-food" of 5.1%. On the other hand, the "forestry and paper" and "chemicals" sectors recorded declines of 5.9% and 5% respectively. The total trading volume is estimated at 636.8 million dirhams against 454.5 million dirhams the previous week. On the central equity market, the average daily volume reached 159.1 million dirhams, after 90.9 million dirhams, Bank Al-Maghrib specifies.

Note that as of May 29, the US dollar was worth 9.776 dirhams, while the European currency (euro) was trading at 10.891 dirhams.