Morocco’s High Commission for Planning (HCP) projects the country’s economic growth to shrink by 5.8% in 2020, down from an increase of 2.5% in 2019, occasioned by negative impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic, as well as drought.
Particular sectors that are predicted to shrink are as follows:
- •Primary sector: negative growth of 5.7%
- •Secondary sector to shrink by 6.9% from a 3.6% increase in 2019
- •Tertiary sector to shrink by 4.5% from a 3.8% increase in 2019
- •Non-agricultural activities to shrink by 5.3% from a 3.7% increase in 2019
- •Unemployment rate to increase to 14.8%
- •Domestic consumption to decline by 4.4%
- •Budget deficit to widen to 7.4%
On 9th July, Morocco extended its state of health emergency, which has been in place since 24th March, by one month.
AfDB projects that Africa’s GDP will contract by 3.4% in 2020, dropping by 7.3% from the pre-COVID19 growth projection. In addition, the bank says that cumulative GDP losses could range between $173.1 billion and $236.7 billion in 2020-2021.
For 2021, AfDB projects GDP losses could be from $27.6 billion (baseline) up to $47 billion (worst case) from the potential GDP of $2.76 trillion without the pandemic.
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