Morocco’s economic growth should rebound by 3.2% this year after +1.3% in 2022, following “a painful recession in the agricultural sector victim of a historic drought. The Kingdom will thus do better than Tunisia or Algeria and more than the average for the Middle East and North Africa region, estimated at 3%, according to the economic research department of the Crédit Agricole Group. But beware! The high price of raw materials and imported consumer products should still put pressure on importing countries, in a world that will remain inflationary, not allowing to significantly improve current balances.
Announcements of growth forecasts for Morocco continue. The latest one comes from the experts of the economic studies department of the French group Crédit Agricole, “the leading financier of the European economy. They expect a growth of 3% this year in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). That is to say a deceleration compared to 2022 where it had reached 5.4% on average, due to the very strong increase in the GDP of hydrocarbon producing countries that have benefited from a barrel price above 100 dollars and sales volumes up sharply compared to 2021.
While the GDP of oil-producing countries is expected to decelerate this year (with the exception of Libya), for non-producing countries, growth will be quite mixed. It is also expected to slow down in Tunisia, remain relatively stable in Egypt and Jordan, and rise quite strongly in Morocco,” the study points out. Indeed, for Morocco, the forecasts expect a rebound in gross domestic product (GDP) to 3.2%, against 1.3% last year following “a painful recession in the agricultural sector, victim of a historic drought. The Kingdom will thus do better than the average of the MENA region (3%) and that of neighboring countries including Tunisia (oil importing country) whose GDP will slow from 2.5% to 2% or Algeria (producer country) which would show a deceleration to 2.9% after 3.5% last year.
According to the Crédit Agricole Group, Morocco’s GDP reached $134 billion in 2022. The recovery in 2023 will depend on three key factors: the expected rebound of the agricultural sector, the intensity of the crisis in the three European partners: Spain, France, and Italy, and, finally, the evolution of import prices. In the MENA region, “the high price of raw materials and imported consumer products should continue to put pressure on importing countries, in a world that will remain inflationary and will not allow for a significant improvement in current account balances, which will remain in deficit overall in non-hydrocarbon producing countries,” the study estimates. For the region as a whole, household consumption as well as investment should grow by an average of 3.3% and 3.8% respectively in 2023.
It should be noted that for the oil-producing countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), GDP growth should slow from an average of 7.5% in 2022 to less than 3% in 2023. In particular, it will slow from 8.7% to 3.2% in Saudi Arabia, from 7.0% to 3.8% in the United Arab Emirates and from 4.4% to 2.7% in Qatar. This trend should also materialize in other producing countries. Libya will be the exception, as the return to growth (+17.0%) “is solely due to a base effect, after the recession of 2022” (-13%).
