Morocco’s Budget Deficit Widens to 50.5 Billion Dirhams Amid Pandemic Pressures

This deficit worsened in September and stood at 7.7 billion DH due to the deterioration of the ordinary balance (−4.1 billion DH compared to September 2020).

According to the Ministry of Finance, excluding the surplus recorded by the Special Fund for the Management of the Covid-19 Pandemic, the deficit amounts to nearly 58.9 billion DH and has worsened by nearly 22.5 billion DH compared to the same period in 2019. As for ordinary revenue and expenditure, they show a negative ordinary balance of nearly 13.4 billion DH against 9.3 billion DH at the end of September. This represents an acceleration in the pace of execution of ordinary expenditure compared to that of revenue.

As for the achievement rate of ordinary revenue compared to the forecasts of the 2020 amended finance law, it stood at 81% against 80% in 2019 on a net basis of tax refunds, rebates and restitutions. Compared to the 2019 period, this revenue declined by 17.4 billion DH, including 13.4 billion DH in tax revenue and 3.7 billion DH in non-tax revenue.

As for investment expenditure, disbursements showed an achievement rate of 70.3% compared to the forecasts of the amended finance law and a decline of nearly 3.3 billion DH (−6.1%) compared to the same period in 2019. The drop in expenditure under ministerial budgets would be the cause of this development.

The Treasury’s special accounts, for their part, showed a surplus of 12.7 billion, compared to 3.8 billion in 2019. This increase is justified in particular by the surplus of 8.5 billion generated by the Special Fund for the Management of the Covid-19 Pandemic, the other Treasury special accounts having recorded a positive flow of 4.2 billion against 3.8 billion at the end of October 2019.