Morocco’s national economy is estimated to have grown by 2.9% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2024, despite a downward trend in agricultural value added, according to the latest report of Morocco’s Statistics and Forecasts Office (HCP) issued Monday.
Economic activity is expected to continue to improve, thanks to the dynamic performance of secondary industries and the ongoing strengthening of services in Morocco.
In the second quarter of 2024, non-agricultural growth is expected to be maintained, but the continued downturn in agricultural activities will likely reduce the rate of growth in the national economy to +2.7% on an annual basis.
At the start of 2024, global economic activity across zones throughout the world was marked by a wide disparity in growth.
In the United States, economic activity was expected to grow by 2.8% year-on-year, slightly less than in the fourth quarter of 2023, due in particular to the slowdown in consumer spending and the decline in residential investment.
In the Eurozone, growth was +0.3% year-on-year, after +0.7% in the previous quarter, reflecting a persistent lag between the region’s economies.
In emerging Asia excluding China, economies are said to have benefited from the recovery of the semiconductor cycle. In China, however, activity has been confronted with problems of financial management and household and institutional debt.
Growth in China was +4.1% in the first quarter of 2024, instead of +5.3% a quarter earlier.
In the first quarter of 2024, overall inflation rates in the USA and the Eurozone were +3.1% and +2.6%, respectively, instead of +3.2% and +2.7% a quarter earlier.
Inflation with respect to goods was expected to have fallen significantly in most countries, thanks to lower energy prices and the gradual easing of bottlenecks in supply chains, compared with the peaks seen in the years 2021-2022. Inflation in services, on the other hand, was expected to persist, with only a slow rate of decline.
Under these conditions, the volume of traded goods around the world should have regained some momentum in the first quarter of 2024, supported with imports from emerging economies and, to a lesser extent, those from advanced economies.
The latest World Trade Organization barometer for March 2024 reported a relative improvement in export orders, slightly above their long-term trend.