Morocco’s Budget Deficit Narrows as Tax Revenue Rises, Treasury Reports

Explanations published in its monthly bulletin of public finance statistics for April 2019 show that this deficit takes into account "a positive balance of 11.7 MMDH generated by the special Treasury accounts (CST) and the autonomously managed state services (SEGMA). The publication reports on ordinary revenue, which stands at 80.6 MMDH against 73.8 MMDH at the end of April 2018. This results in an increase of 9.2% due to "the increase in direct taxes (+10.8%), indirect taxes (+9.5%) and non-tax revenue (+36.8%), combined with the decrease in customs duties (-8%) and registration and stamp duties (-4.9%)".

As for the expenditure issued under the general budget, the same source indicates that they increased by 21.2% to 131.3 MMDH at the end of April 2019, taking into account "the 12.8% increase in operating expenditure, 7.8% in investment expenditure and 57.5% in budgeted debt service".

According to the monthly bulletin of public finance statistics for April 2019, expenditure commitments, including those not subject to prior commitment approval, amounted to 219.1 MMDH, representing an overall commitment rate of 44%.

As for the revenue of the special Treasury accounts, it reached 35.7 MMDH, taking into account the transfers received from the common charges of the general investment budget for 12 MMDH, while the expenditure issued was 24.5 MMDH. Meanwhile, the revenue of the SEGMA amounted to 641 million dirhams (MDH) against 541 MDH at the end of April 2018, up 18.5%, while the expenditure issued increased by 5.3% to 240 MDH.