The World Bank (WB) Group stated that following a slowdown in 2022, Morocco’s economic growth is expected to rise to 2.8% in 2023, thanks to a partial recovery in agricultural production, services, and net exports.
In its latest report, entitled “From Resilience to Shared Prosperity”, the World Bank stressed that this recovery should be reinforced in the medium term, with real Gross Domestic Production (GDP) growth reaching 3.1% in 2024, 3.3% in 2025, and 3.5% in 2026, as the Kingdom’s domestic demand gradually recovers from recent shocks.
The banking institution affirmed that Morocco has repeatedly demonstrated its strong capacity to effectively respond to shocks, the latest of which was the earthquake of September 8 that struck several regions of the Kingdom.
The International institution stressed that Morocco successfully managed the humanitarian response to the earthquake, and implemented an ambitious roadmap to unlock the development potential of the worst-hit provinces, recalling that this natural disaster resulted in devastating human and material loss, primarily in remote mountainous areas.
The World Bank also mentioned several other indicators that testify to Morocco’s external resilience, notably robust external demand for the country’s goods and services, despite the global economic slowdown, shedding light on the solid foreign direct investment (FDI) flows, increasingly oriented toward the manufacturing sector and the emerging new modern industrial niches closely linked to global value chains.
Quoted in a press release, World Bank Maghreb and Malta Country Director, Jesko Hentschel, affirmed that “Morocco has shown strong resilience in the face of a number of shocks, most recently the September earthquake”.
Hentschel also added that “the reforms already planned by Morocco are needed to build on the country’s external resilience and, above all, to boost prosperity, particularly to achieve the ambitious development goals set out in the New Development Model (NDM).”
The World Bank also recalled that Morocco has launched ambitious reforms to promote human capital and encourage private investment, which will only result in the desired impact on economic and social development if they are implemented with other major initiatives, particularly the removal of regulatory and institutional barriers that restrict competition and slow the reallocation of production factors to more productive businesses and sectors.
The report also underlined that aside from its crucial role in promoting gender equality, increasing women’s participation in the labor market (WLMP) would also have a significant economic impact, acting as a powerful driver of socio-economic development, pointing out that achieving the NMD’s goal of 45% WFP could boost growth by almost one percentage point per year.
