Publication:
Morocco Economic Monitor, July 2020

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (3.77 MB)
747 downloads
Other Files
French PDF (3.8 MB)
1,430 downloads
Published
2020-07
ISSN
Date
2020-07-15
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This report presents the current outlook for Morocco given the recent Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) developments. The COVID-19 shock is, however, abruptly pushing the economy into a severe recession, the first one since 1995. The labor market is facing a shock of historical proportion, with vulnerable workers, including those in the informal sector being particularly affected. The government’s response to date has been swift and decisive. The proactive response has enabled the country to avoid a massive outbreak, thus saving lives. The post-pandemic economic recovery is projected - with unusually large uncertainty - to be a protracted one, with growth only returning to the pre-pandemic trend by 2022. Faced with the risk of a protracted pandemic, moving from mitigation to an adaptation phase is key to ensuring a resilient, inclusive, and growing Moroccan economy. Despite potential volatility in the economic recovery phase, Morocco has an opportunity to build a more sustainable and resilient economy by developing a strategy to adapt, similar to its approach to the environment front.
Link to Data Set
Citation
World Bank. 2020. Morocco Economic Monitor, July 2020. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34113 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Central African Republic Economic Update, July 2021
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-07) World Bank
    The economy of the Central African Republic (CAR) decelerated in 2020 compared to 2019. Despite a relatively contained health impact, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a significant impact on the country’s economy, with the disruption in global value chains, low external demand, and domestic containment measures that significantly affected trade, transport, and tourism. Nevertheless, CAR’s GDP growth of 0.8 percent has outpaced the average of regional peers (−2.9 percent) and countries affected by fragility, conflict and violence (FCV) (−1.7 percent). On the supply side, the positive dynamic of the agriculture sector prevented the economy from entering a recession, and the forestry and telecommunications sectors were more resilient than expected. On the demand side, private consumption contracted in 2020, reflecting a decline in household income owing to the pandemic. As a result, the extreme poverty rate increased from 70.7 percent in 2019 to 71.4 percent, affecting a total of more than 3.4 million people, in 2020. CAR’s current account balance (CAD) deteriorated in 2020. The current account deficit widened from 4.8 percent of GDP in 2019 to 8.7 percent of GDP in 2020, driven by weak external demand and private transfers as well as an increased deficit of the balance on goods. With the COVID-19 pandemic, goods exports declined while non-oil imports were boosted by donor-funded investments. CAR’s current account deficit is not expected to be as severe as that of comparator FCV, CEMAC, and Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. The capital account balance improved significantly in 2020 due to the rise in external grants, while the financial account surplus shifted into a deficit. The improvement in the capital account has helped narrow the balance of payments deficit and increasing foreign reserves, which reached a level equivalent to about 3.5 months imports at end-2020.
  • Publication
    Morocco Economic Monitor, Fall 2023
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-11-20) World Bank
    The Moroccan economy is recovering. Following a sharp deceleration in 2022 caused by various overlapping commodity and climatic shocks, economic growth increased to 2.9 percent in the first semester of 2023, driven primarily by services and net exports. Inflation has halved between February and August 2023, but food inflation remains high. Lower commodity prices havealso contributed to a temporary narrowing of the current account deficit. The response to recent crises and the unfolding reform of the health and social protection systems are exerting pressures on public spending. However, the government is managing to gradually reduce the budget deficit.
  • Publication
    Morocco Economic Monitor, Summer 2024
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-17) World Bank
    This report includes a special focus chapter focused on the dynamics of the Moroccan private sector. It is based on the results of an analysis jointly conducted with the Moroccan Observatory of Small and Medium Enterprises (OMTPME) which exploits a comprehensive database on formal firms. The productivity performance of the private sector has been lackluster, primarily due to a worsening of allocative efficiency. Larger firms tend to exhibit a lower productivity than their smaller peers, suggesting that markets are not sufficiently rewarding more efficient and innovative firms. In addition, Moroccan SMEs struggle to grow, and the density of High Growth Firms remains very low. This is problematic feature of the private sector given that in other settings such firms have been shown to disproportionately contribute to job creation. Addressing the constraints facing the private sector would help overcome the disappointing job creation capacity that the Moroccan economy has exhibited in recent years.
  • Publication
    Tunisia Economic Monitor, Fall 2020
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-09) World Bank
    Tunisia is expecting a sharper decline in growth than most of its regional peers, having entered the COVID-19 (coronavirus) crisis whilst already experiencing slow growth and rising debt levels. After an expected 9.2 percent contraction in 2020, growth is temporarily expected to accelerate to 5.8 percent in 2021 as the pandemic’s effects begin to abate, before returning to a more subdued growth trajectory at around 2 percent by 2022, reflecting pre-existing structural weaknesses. With this, some of the past gains in job creation and poverty reduction will be lost as unemployment edges up and the share of the population vulnerable to falling into poverty increases. In this difficult context, restoring the credibility of the macroeconomic framework is a critical next step for Tunisia to successfully navigate its way through this crisis and lay the foundation for a more durable recovery in growth. The special focus in this edition of the Tunisia Economic Monitor draws on the recently published enterprise survey for Tunisia to discuss the latest evidence on firm performance and present priorities for a growing and more productive private sector.
  • Publication
    Egypt Economic Monitor, November 2020
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-11) World Bank
    The COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic is causing the most severe global health and economic crisis in at least seven decades. In Egypt, the disruptions caused by the pandemic started in March 2020, and has since interrupted a period of macroeconomic stability, characterized by relatively high growth, improved fiscal accounts, and a comfortable level of foreign reserves. Yet, the pandemic also hit as longstanding challenges continued to persist, notably the government’s elevated debt-to-GDP ratio (despite its significant reduction in recent years), sluggish revenue-mobilization and the below-potential performance of non-oil merchandise exports and non-oil FDI. The fiscal, monetary and energy sector reforms implemented in recent years, along with the emergency measures undertaken by authorities in response to the COVID-19 crisis are so far helping Egypt weather the shock. Indeed, average real growth has remained positive during FY2019/20 and foreign reserves continue to be rather ample. Nevertheless, the COVID-19 pandemic has inevitably caused job and income losses, posing additional strains on Egyptian households’ livelihoods, and is thus exacerbating the long-standing challenge of job-creation in Egypt, notably in the formal private sector. The in-focus chapter of this report is therefore dedicated to the topic of jobs and economic transformation. The analysis of this chapter shows that the economic transformation process has been slow-moving in Egypt, with employment shares increasing either in low value-added sectors, or in sectors that have experienced a decline in productivity (value-added per worker). Hence, the Egyptian economy has not been able to generate high-earning jobs, at scale. Going forward, for businesses to expand and create sufficient and high-quality employment opportunities, a three-pronged approach will be necessary: (i) Sustaining macroeconomic stability and overall policy predictability whilst incentivizing domestic savings to finance investments. (ii) Getting the enabling environment right to create attractive opportunities for domestic and foreign investments. (iii) Upgrading human capital and firm capabilities to fast-track the economic transformation process in Egypt and to strengthen the country’s resilience against such severe shocks.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Digital Africa
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13) Begazo, Tania; Dutz, Mark Andrew; Blimpo, Moussa
    All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.
  • Publication
    World Bank Annual Report 2024
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-25) World Bank
    This annual report, which covers the period from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, has been prepared by the Executive Directors of both the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA)—collectively known as the World Bank—in accordance with the respective bylaws of the two institutions. Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank Group and Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors, has submitted this report, together with the accompanying administrative budgets and audited financial statements, to the Board of Governors.
  • Publication
    Digital-in-Health
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-08-18) World Bank
    Technology and data are integral to daily life. As health systems face increasing demands to deliver new, more, better, and seamless services affordable to all people, data and technology are essential. With the potential and perils of innovations like artificial intelligence the future of health care is expected to be technology-embedded and data-linked. This shift involves expanding the focus from digitization of health data to integrating digital and health as one: Digital-in-Health. The World Bank’s report, Digital-in-Health: Unlocking the Value for Everyone, calls for a new digital-in-health approach where digital technology and data are infused into every aspect of health systems management and health service delivery for better health outcomes. The report proposes ten recommendations across three priority areas for governments to invest in: prioritize, connect and scale.
  • Publication
    Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21) Luna-Bazaldua, Diego; Levin, Victoria; Liberman, Julia; Gala, Priyal Mukesh
    This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.
  • Publication
    Argentina Country Climate and Development Report
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11) World Bank Group
    The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.