The International Monetary Fund has called on Morocco’s central bank to adopt an inflation framework, expand the tax base further, continue financial reforms and reduce the country’s debt.
Inflation slowed to 0.9% in 2024 from 6.1% a year earlier, due to a fall in prices of imported goods and increased stability in food markets, according to Bank Al-Maghrib, Morocco’s central bank, which expects the rate to stand at 2.4% this year.
“With inflation back to around 2%, Bank Al-Maghrib should continue its preparation to adopt an inflation-targeting framework,” the IMF said on Monday after the end of a mission to the North African country.
The IMF expects Morocco’s economy to grow 3.9% this year from 3.2% in 2024, “as agricultural output rebounds after the recent droughts and the non-agricultural sector continues to expand at a robust pace amid strong domestic demand”.
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It also recommended the government to act on unemployment by “focusing on labour displaced from the agricultural sector due to the sequence of droughts”.
According to the IMF, Morocco needs to further widen the tax base and curb spending to help continue financing structural reform. Also, structural reforms need to focus on boosting job creation through “better targeted” market labor policies and the consolidation of programs to support small and medium firms.
