IMF pessimistic about the Moroccan economy

The Moroccan economy is doing less well than was thought at the beginning of this year. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) this month released a report with forecasts for the coming year. In February, the IMF was still optimistic about the prospects for Morocco.

The IMF foresees that Morocco will enter a recession. It expects a 7% contraction in gross national product (GNP) in 2020, exceeding the contraction expected in projections from Bank Al-Maghrib and the Moroccan government.

According to IMF forecasts, Moroccan GDP will shrink by 4.9% in 2021 and by 3.7% in 2022. In terms of inflation, it will be limited to 0.2% in 2020 and 0.8% in 2021. The unemployment rate is expected to fall to 12.5% ​​in 2020. A 10.5% decrease in unemployment is expected by 2021 .

For the world economy, the IMF expects a decline of 4.4% in 2020 and a recovery in 2021 with growth of 5.2%. “The global economy is recovering from the deep trough it entered following April’s lockdown measures. As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to spread, many countries have delayed reopening and some have reintroduced partial curtailments protect the endangered population, ”the same report says.

The IMF expects China to recover faster than the rest of the world. For the global economy as a whole, it will take longer before figures can be seen again, as was the case before the pandemic, the fund reports.