“Morocco’s resilience owes a lot to the rapid response of the authorities”, according to the deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kenji Okamura.
This response “has mitigated the economic and social impact of the shocks”, he declared after his visit to Rabat and Casablanca, which he described as very productive.
This visit, the first to Morocco as Deputy Managing Director of the IMF, “was an opportunity to see directly the excellent preparation of the authorities to host on their soil the largest gathering of the IMF and the World Bank “, he said.
It was also an opportunity to appreciate the “resilience of Morocco to the many shocks suffered since 2020, in particular the Covid-19 pandemic, the repercussions of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and two severe droughts”, underlined Kenji Okamura.
Indeed, “the meetings in which I participated during these few days confirmed Morocco’s resilience to the many shocks suffered since 2020, in particular the Covid-19 pandemic, the repercussions of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and two severe droughts”. , he said at the end of his stay in Morocco.
Seizing this opportunity, the Deputy Managing Director of the IMF thus congratulated the Kingdom “for the solid measures taken in response to the many recent shocks, including the impact of Covid-19 and the war led by Russia against Ukraine”. .
In this regard, Kenji Okamura congratulated the Governor of Bank Al-Maghrib, Abdellatif Jouahri, and the Minister of Economy and Finance, Nadia Fettah Alaoui, as well as their teams, “for the fundamental reforms they have undertaken to contribute to strengthening and diversifying the Moroccan economy”.
In a difficult context, “the authorities accelerated the implementation of their structural reform program and took bold measures to extend social protection to all Moroccans, improve the health and education systems, stimulate the development of private sector and address the challenges posed by changing climatic conditions in the country,” he noted.
In his statement, Kenji Okamura also insisted on the fact that the IMF is actively collaborating with Morocco, particularly within the framework of four successive agreements under the precautionary and liquidity line (PLL).
He thus recalled that “earlier this week, the Executive Board of the IMF met in an informal session to consider a request from the Moroccan authorities for a two-year arrangement under the Flexible Credit Line (LCM) with the IMF, for an amount equivalent to 3.7262 billion SDRs (about 417% of Morocco’s quota, or 5 billion dollars)”.
He also specified that this line of credit contributes to the protection against external shocks by providing countries with immediate access to IMF resources without ex-post conditionality.
As if to underline the solid and close partnership between the international financial institution and the Kingdom, Kenji Okamura affirms that “the IMF remains determined to continue to help Morocco deal with the risks resulting from a very uncertain global situation and to support its efforts to achieve a more resilient and inclusive development model”.
Thus, as we mentioned in our previous editions, given the great solidity of Morocco’s economic policy frameworks and balance sheet, the Managing Director of the IMF intends to recommend the approval of an agreement under of the flexible line of credit in favor of Morocco. And this during the board of directors which will make its decision in the coming weeks.
It should be noted that during his working stay in Morocco, the Deputy Managing Director of the IMF also spoke with students from a school in Casablanca to see the progress made by Morocco’s education system in recent years.
He also met with representatives of the private sector in Casablanca “to better understand the difficulties and strengths of the Moroccan economy and financial sector”, he said.
Alain Bouithy