Morocco’s trade deficit drops by 1.9% at the end of April 2020

Morocco’s trade deficit has shrunk by 1.9% to almost 66.25 billion dirhams ($6.9 billion) in the first four months of the current year, according to the Exchange Office.

Morocco witnessed a 19.7% drop in exports between January and April of this year, representing a loss of 20 billion DH ($2 billion), according to the Exchange Office’s latest foreign trade statistics.

In April alone, exports dropped by 47.2% — a 12 billion DH ($1.2 billion) loss — while imports contracted by 33%, or -15 billion DH (-$1.5 billion), the Exchange Office said, adding that the coverage rate lost 4.8 points to 55.2%.

With the exception of Morocco’s stable sales of phosphates and derivatives, which increased by 0.2% to 34 million DH, the country’s major export sectors have suffered from the fall in world demand, the breakdown of supply chains, and the disruption of several activities in Morocco, all consequences of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

With regard to exports, the decline is imputed to the drop in sales in the majority of sectors, in particular automobile (-39%), textile and leather (-28.3%), aeronautics (- 33.9%), agriculture and foodstuffs (-7%), other mining (-30%), electronics and electricity (-1.9%) and other industries (-15.7%).

The losses range from 1.8 billion DH to 11 billion DH ($184 million to $1.1 billion).

The decline in imports of goods is due to the decrease in imports of capital goods (-7.8 billion DH), energy products (-5.7 billion DH), finished consumer products (-5.4 billion DH), semi-finished products (-4.4 billion DH) and raw products (-1.7 billion DH), notes the Exchange Office. On the other hand, purchases of food products increased by more than 3.9 billion DH.

The surplus of the services trade balance dropped by 9.1% to 24.6 billion dirhams, reports the Exchange Office, noting that exports and imports of services fell by 11.1% and 12 respectively, 8%.