World Bank Praises Morocco’s ’Proactive’ COVID-19 Response, Citing Economic Progress

"Faced with Covid-19, the Moroccan government has had a proactive response that has allowed the country to avoid a massive epidemic, thus saving lives," can be read in the World Bank report entitled "Economic Outlook and Impact of the Covid-19 Crisis".

In this report, the World Bank indicates that "Morocco has made significant social and economic progress" over the past two decades, thanks to "significant public investments, structural reforms and measures to ensure macroeconomic stability".

However, the report qualifies, "the Covid-19 crisis is abruptly pushing the Moroccan economy into a severe recession, the first since 1995", resulting in a real GDP growth of the Moroccan economy of -4% in 2020.

The current account deficit is expected to widen and reach 8.4% in 2020, despite the decline in imports, the report continues, forecasting a significant drop in export and tourism revenues as well as transfers.

As for budget revenues (excluding those generated by the Special Covid Fund), they should experience a significant decline compared to previous forecasts in 2020 and 2021. On the other hand, expenditures should increase in 2020, given the additional health, social protection and other policy responses to the Covid-19 crisis.

In short, concludes the report, "the overall budget deficit is expected to widen to 7.5% of GDP in 2020, nearly 4 percentage points more than expected before the Covid-19 crisis".