Morocco’s 2017 Economic Growth: GDP on the Rise, Investment in Decline

Morocco’s economic growth grazed the 4 percent in the last quarter of 2017. Supported by the healthy rebound in agricultural activities, national economic growth reached 3.8 percent in 2017, compared to 1.2 percent in 2016.

According to the latest note of the High Commission for Planning (HCP), this progress is due to the 14.5 percent increase in agricultural value added, compared with a 13.6 percent decline in 2016.

On the other hand, value added of the secondary sector marked a 2.7 percent compared to 0.8 percent in 2016. According to the HCP, this growth is mainly due to the improvement of the mining industries activities with a 17.8 percent growth against a 1.6 percent decline in 2016. The processing industries also played a key role in boosting national growth, registering a 1.6 percent increase in 2017, compared to 0.4 percent in 2016.

However, the growth rate of tertiary sector slowed to 2.6 percent instead of 3.1 percent in 2016. With the exception of education, health and social work services showing a decrease of 1.8 percent in 2017 instead of a 2.4 percent increase a year earlier, posts and telecommunications activities slowdown to 2.1 percent instead of 4.8 percent in 2016.

Overall, the value added of non-agricultural activities increased by 2.7 percent instead of 2.3 percent during the same period in 2016, says the HCP, noting that despite the sharp slowdown in taxes on the net revenues of subsidies at 1.6 percent instead of 9.9 percent, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by volume grew by 3.8 percent during the 3rd quarter of 2017 instead of 1.3 percent a year before.

The GDP grew by 3.3 percent in the third quarter of 2017 at current prices, thus the rise in the general price level was down 0.5 percent instead of 2.1 percent in the same period in 2016.

At the same time, this growth was supported by final consumption and foreign trade, according to HCP, stating that exports of goods and services posted an increase of 10.5 percent in the 3rd quarter of 2017 instead of 2.2 percent a year ago, while imports experienced a sharp slowdown to 1.5 percent from 17.1 percent in 2016.

In addition, another feature of the national economy in the third quarter of 2017 is the sharp underperformance of gross investment which fell by 5.3 percent instead of an increase of 18.1 percent in 2016. This decline marked a negative contribution to growth of 1.8 points instead of 5.5 points, during the same quarter of the previous year.