RABAT, Morocco (AP) — Morocco’s finance minister predicted Thursday the North African kingdom’s growth rate for 2012 would drop to 4.2 percent because of the economic crisis in Europe.
Morocco has had an average growth rate for the past five years of around 4.8 percent, though it is believed to have dropped slightly during 2011.
Morocco’s tourism sector wasn’t as severely affected by the uprisings across the region as fellow North African states like Egypt and Tunisia, which saw this key industry devastated over the past year and flat growth.
Despite a relatively robust growth rate, however, the country has struggled to create jobs and unemployment is officially at 9.1 percent, though it soars to more than 30 percent among those under 34 years.
The capital Rabat witnesses daily protests by unemployed universities graduates.
The new Islamist government, elected in November, has promised to make job creation one of its top priorities.
In his statement carried by the state news agency, Finance Minister Nizar Baraka said the 2012 budget passed in October would be amended in face of the problems in the global economy and the lack of rainfall this year which bodes ill for the all important agricultural sector.
He also promised to eventually reduce the budget deficit to 1 percent of gross domestic product. The deficit rose this year to more than 4 percent, according to Baraka, under pressure from additional spending on subsidies and government salaries in the face of the unrest.
The five-year government program presented to parliament is based on an annual growth rate of 5.5 percent for 2012-2016.
