Morocco’s National Railway Office Reports Strong 2019, Faces COVID-19 Setbacks in 2020

On this occasion, the stakeholders proceeded to examine the closing of the accounts for the 2019 financial year, to approve the 2020 budgets, while taking into account the impact of the coronavirus on rail activity. The balance sheet at the end of December 2019 shows good performance in all the company’s compartments. However, the appearance of the new coronavirus has had a negative impact on this development momentum.

In his presentation, Mohamed Rabie Khlie, CEO of ONCF, indicated that the 2020 budgets were initially designed on the assumption of the continuation of development and the deployment of the sector’s reform, with an encouraging upward trend recorded in the various registers during the first quarter of this year. Except that the health crisis has encroached on this momentum, impacting the activity by imposing the adoption of an urgent and priority action plan. A plan that aims at better managing this crisis, but also reviewing the budgets, in order to take into account its acute repercussions on the sector.

ONCF has thus drawn up the reconsidered operating and investment budgets, based on a gradual recovery of traffic after deconfinement, in line with the pace of socio-economic activity, the optimization of expenses, the adaptation of investments and the achievement of a foreseeable turnover of nearly 3 billion DH.