Morocco’s foreign exchange reserves improve by 16.1% in October

Morocco’s foreign exchange reserves rose 16.1% compared to the same period last year, the Central bank, Bank Al Maghreb said.

By October 14, Morocco’s foreign exchange reserves stood at 250.1 billion dirhams up from 248.9 billion dirhams registered in the first week of September, the central bank said in its weekly statistics.

This improvement of Morocco’s hard currency reserves is largely ascribed to the drop in the kingdom’s energy bill.

Morocco’s oil and gas imports stood at 29.394 billion dirhams by July 2016 compared to 41.947 billion dirhams the same period last year.

The Central bank said it maintained key interest rate unchanged at 2.26%, adding that the dirham appreciated 0.19% against the Euro and depreciated by 0.09% against the dollar during the September 13-19 period.

On the other hand, Morocco’s external debt reached 312.9 billion dirhams by June 2016 up from 301 billion dirhams by the end of 2015.

Morocco’s euro debt represents 61.9% of the total external debt while the debt in the dollar, the Yen and other currencies stands at 24.7%, 4.2% and 9.2% respectively.