Morocco Faces Elevated Economic Risk Amid COVID-19 Recovery, Coface Report Shows

In its latest Quarterly Barometer and on the occasion of the publication of the guide to country and sectoral risks, Coface, based on microeconomic data, through 70 years of experience in the payment field. Given the current situation facing the States, and knowing that the economic recovery in 2021 will not benefit all countries or all companies and sectors equally, Morocco has been assigned the B rating, i.e. a rather high risk, alongside Algeria which had the D rating, i.e. very high risk, and Egypt, which came out with the C rating, i.e. high.

On the other hand, in February 2020, on the map of assessments which also covered 162 countries, Morocco had received the A4 rating, suitable in terms of the risk of corporate defaults. Senegal, Kenya and Botswana had also received the same rating. Moreover, Coface predicts that global growth would reach an average of +4.3% this year, while world trade would increase by +6.7% in volume after a decline of −5.2% in 2020.

Regarding business failures, following a decline in 2020 in all regions, attributed to government support plans, their maintenance will dictate the survival of many companies in 2021.

Out of 23 improvements in sectoral risk assessment this quarter, about half are attributable to the automotive sector. Construction and chemicals come after. However, several other activities will not be able to resume immediately, due to the pandemic, Coface pointed out.