Morocco’s Treasury Debt to Hit 908 Billion Dirhams in 2021, Report Says

In the recent "Budget Focus" published by Attijari Global Research (AGR), the domestic component would reach around 664 MMDH against 244 MMDH for the external component. Thus, the share of the external deficit is close to 25% of the total debt of the Treasury at the end of February 2021 and will be 27% at the end of 2021, AGR specified, noting that between 2017 and 2019, this debt had been limited on average to 21.4%. Moreover, "the weight of external debt in the overall indebtedness of the Treasury should exceed for the 1st time its benchmark reference, i.e. 25%," noted AGR.

In addition, "due to the contraction of GDP in a context of health crisis, the impact on the level of indebtedness of the Treasury is significant. It would evolve towards new references, beyond the conventional ratios of 60% of GDP". In addition, to finance its growing debt, the State has had to take out new loans, which further aggravate the debt stock of the Treasury, which was around 65% at the end of 2019.

Thus, according to the analysts, the Treasury’s debt ratio should reach nearly 80% in 2021 after standing at 77.7% in 2020. This rate was already 74.4% at the end of February 2021. As for the domestic debt to GDP ratio, it should go from 58.6% in 2020 to 56.1% at the end of February 2021. As for the external debt ratio, it would reach 18.3% at the end of February 2021, compared to 19.0% in 2020.