Gulf Today
Reuters
Morocco’s economy grew 1.2 per cent year-on-year in the fourth quarter, the country’s planning agency said on Thursday, at the end of a year in which a harsh drought hurt the key agriculture sector.
The agency forecast national output would expand 3.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2017, buoyed by a surge in farming output which slumped 12.3 per cent in the final three months of 2016 following North Africa’s worst drought in decades.
Morocco said 2016’s cereal harvest plummeted 70 per cent to 3.35 million tonnes from 2015’s record 11 million tonnes. Agricultural output would increase 11.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2017, the agency said.
Farming accounts for more than 15 per cent of Morocco’s more-than $100 billion economy and is the country’s biggest employer.
Growth in Morocco’s non-agricultural sectors accelerated to 2.5 per cent in the fourth quarter from 1.9 per cent in the previous three months, the agency said. Morocco’s central bank predicts economic growth will jump to 4.2 per cent in 2017 from an estimated 1.2 per cent last year on the back of a sharp increase in agricultural output.
Morocco has done more than most North African countries to make painful reforms required by international lenders to curb deficits, such as an end to fuel subsidies and a freeze on public sector hiring.
It is also preparing to introduce a flexible exchange rate system later this year.
Reuters
