Moroccan economy one of least impacted by COVID-19 in MENA – IMF

Moroccan economy has so far shown resilience and agility in responding to the coronavirus pandemic making it one of the least impacted in the MENA region by the pandemic, MENA and Central Asia director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Jihad Azour said.

“Morocco is one of the countries that knew how to efficiently manage the coronavirus health crisis,” said Azour at a virtual press conference.

The IMF has said earlier that the Moroccan economy will contract by 3.7% this year due to the economic repercussions of the virus.

Azour said that while Morocco remains one of the least impacted by the pandemic, the IMF however will update its economic growth forecasts for the MENA countries.

The IMF and Morocco have a close cooperation on a set of fronts including the dirham flexibility reform.

Morocco has drawn on 3 billion dollars offered by the IMF to bolster its foreign exchange reserves due to the crisis.

Head of the Central Bank said that Morocco could renew the precautionary liquidity line.

 

Earlier this week, the World Bank also praised Morocco’s quick response and efficient management of the pandemic, which helped the country “to contain a wider spread of the deadly virus, sparing the Moroccan health system and its 9,200 public sector doctors from severe stress”.

The international financial institution also noted that Morocco has one of the lowest covid-19 fatality rates (deaths in proportion to total infections) in the world (less than 2.6 pc), while 90 pc of the reported cases have already recovered.