Economical overview
Morocco is a poor country and, unlike other
states in the region, has no oil or gas resources. The
economy is heavily dependent on agriculture, but tourism
has also become an important source of income. Morocco
is also the world's largest phosphate exporter.
Casablanca is usually described as the country's
"economic capital".
Agriculture is affected by drought for some years,
while tourism and phosphate exports are affected by
economic activity in the outside world. The economy is
therefore vulnerable, and unemployment and poverty are
widespread. During the 2000s, there has been an upswing
in other areas, notably the service sector with
increased tourism, construction and trade as well as in
the manufacturing industry.
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Countryaah.com:
Major imports by Morocco, covering a full list of top products imported by the country and trade value for each product category.
In 2019, the country received nearly 13 million
tourists, which is why the pandemic caused by
coronovirus will have serious effects in 2020. Tourism
revenues have always recovered after periods of fighting
and terrorism. Even during the chaotic revolution year
2011, which included, among other things, a bloody
terrorist attack on the tourist routes in Marrakech,
visitor numbers increased. It is explained by the fact
that during the Arab Spring, the country still appeared
to be calmer than the rest of North Africa and the
Middle East. Many of the sun tourists who would normally
have gone to Egypt or Tunisia chose Morocco instead.
Most of the tourists come from France and Spain, and
many are foreign Moroccans on home visits.
Since the 1980s, reforms involving, among other
things, the sale of state-owned enterprises have been on
the program, in order to get the state's business
organized and limit the bureaucracy that impedes private
business, foreign trade and investment. However, the
changes have been slow. Bureaucratic hassle and
corruption remain barriers to increased growth and
competitiveness.
For many years, the state budget has had significant
deficits, and the government has been forced to use
revenues from privatizations for ongoing expenditure
rather than for new investments. A major expenditure
item was previously subsidized prices for petrol and
petroleum products, but in 2014 the government announced
that the state subsidy for gasoline and fuel oil had
been abolished and that subsidies on diesel had also
been reduced. Wheat, sugar and flour, on the other hand,
were chosen to continue subsidizing because so much of
the population lives under small circumstances, and
price increases risk giving rise to strikes and
demonstrations. Another heavy expense is wage costs in
the over-staffed public sector.
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Abbreviationfinder.org: Check this abbreviation website to find three letter ISO codes for all countries in the world, including MAR which represents the country of Morocco. Check findjobdescriptions to learn more about Morocco.
Morocco covers about 95 percent of its energy
consumption through the import of fossil fuels.
Therefore, it can be important on several levels that
renewable energy investments are in progress, especially
solar energy. In 2016, the first step was taken in using
the world's largest thermal solar power plant, which
benefits from the Sahara sun. The solar power park has
been located in Ouarzazate on the edge of the desert
and, with an extensive surrounding electricity grid,
will provide one million people with electricity.
The railway network is run by a state company and
connects the big cities. In 2018, the first high-speed
railway in Africa between Casablanca and Tangier was
inaugurated via Rabat (see Calendar). There are plans to
eventually move it along the Mediterranean coast to
Oudja at the border with Algeria. Spain and Morocco
decided in 2003 to implement the plans for a four-mile
long railway tunnel under the Gibraltar strait that will
link Africa with Europe, but construction has not
begun. Morocco has several major ports, most along the
Atlantic coast. Most importantly, it is in Casablanca,
which is one of Africa's largest, but most passenger
ships call Tangier. A new major port east of the city
was completed in 2007.
The upswing in some industries also has a downside.
Urbanization along coastal routes increases the demand
for sand. The UN environmental program Unep claims that
the construction industry has thus also received an
illegal element, a "sand mafia". According to Unep,
one-tenth is extracted from the sand the construction
industry consumes without a permit. Other sources link
the sand thefts to money laundering.
The film industry has become a good source of income,
not least for service industries, with spectacular
locations for many international productions, especially
in the region of Ouarzazate. In this way the place has
been visited by heroes such as James Bond and the
Knights Arn. In the Swedish feature film Jerusalem
(1996), directed by Bille August, the Nås people from
Dalarna, also known from Selma Lagerlöf, land in fact in
the Moroccan port city of Essaouira. In order to attract
more productions to the country, a tax rebate for film
companies was introduced in 2017. Also in the film
industry, the corona pandemic causes a noticeable
fallout.
Transfers from Moroccans working abroad - mainly in
Spain, France and Italy - are an important source of
income. In 2017, the American think tank Pew estimated
the value of the transfers to be over seven billion
dollars the previous year.
Part of the extensive informal economy is the
production and smuggling of drugs. The business learns
to turn over billions of dollars annually. Nearly
200,000 people are believed to grow cannabis in the
Rifbergen. Morocco is the world's largest cannabis
producer and most of the cannabis and marijuana reaching
EU countries comes from there. The country is also an
intermediate station for Latin American cocaine and
heroin from the Middle East.
Trade relations with the outside world have been
improved through both bilateral and multilateral
agreements.
Morocco signed a trade agreement with the EU's
predecessor EEC as early as 1976. An association
agreement with the EU came into force in 2000. Morocco
was the first Mediterranean country to have "advanced
status" in its relations with the EU in 2008. Morocco is
the country that receives the most aid from the EU in
the called the neighborhood policy. In 2011, however,
the European Parliament stopped a fisheries agreement
between the EU and Morocco, citing the occupation of
Western Sahara, and a new agreement was signed only two
years later. When, for the same reason, the European
Court of Justice annulled a trade agreement concluded by
the parties, it resulted in Morocco in early 2016
temporarily suspending all relations with the EU, in
protest. At the beginning of 2019, both a new agreement
with Morocco on agricultural products and a new
fisheries agreement were approved in the EU, despite the
fact that Morocco has in no way backed down from its
claims on Western Sahara.
FACTS - FINANCE
GDP per person
US $ 3,238 (2018)
Total GDP
US $ 118 495 M (2018)
GDP growth
3.0 percent (2018)
Agriculture's share of GDP
12.0 percent (2018)
Manufacturing industry's share of GDP
15.7 percent (2017)
The service sector's share of GDP
50.5 percent (2018)
Inflation
0.7 percent (2019)
Government debt's share of GDP
65.0 percent (2018)
External debt
US $ 49,752 million (2017)
Currency
MAD
Merchandise exports
US $ 24 588 million (2018)
Imports
US $ 44,803 million (2018)
Current account
- US $ 6 445 million (2018)
Commodity trade's share of GDP
68 percent (2018)
Main export goods
textile and leather goods, phosphoric acid and crude
phosphate, fish, fruits and vegetables
Largest trading partner
France, Spain, India, USA, China
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