Lhe national and international economic situation has finally got the better of the posture hitherto adopted by Abdellatif Jouahri. The Governor of Bank Al-Maghrib has indeed complied with what seems to be “an agreement” to which practically all central banks subscribe at the moment: increase key rates to curb galloping inflation, at the risk of slowing down growth.
The key rate thus goes from 1.5% to 2% at the end of the Central Bank Council meeting held last Tuesday. However, Jouahri was reluctant for a long time, especially during the last two Councils in March and June, to raise this rate, putting forward, among other arguments, the nature of inflationary pressures, mainly of external origin.
But he ended up abdicating because, today, the economic situation has visibly changed, with an increasingly significant risk of stagflation. The miasma of inflation, which is now fueled by both external and internal pressures, is indeed spreading «plus large» in the economy.
“The spread of the rise is widening. Of the 116 sections of products and services that make up the reference basket of the consumer price index established by the High Commission for Planning, more than 60% experienced an increase of more than 2% in August once morest 42% in January. 2022 and 23% on average between 2018 and 2019», Recognizes Jouahri. Thus, inflation accelerated to reach 8% in August following 7% in July, 3% on average in the second quarter and 4% in the first. At the end of 2022, it should stand at 6.3%. At the same time, following a rebound of 7.9% in 2021, economic growth would stand, according to Bank Al-Maghrib forecasts, at 0.8% this year, before accelerating in 2023 to stand at 3, 6%.
Projections much more pessimistic than those of the government, which is counting on an economic growth rate of 1.5% in 2022 and 4.5% in 2023. Beyond the differences in these forecasts, it is more the weakness of the growth that challenges: it is out of phase with Morocco’s development ambitions and, above all, does little to remedy the problem of structural unemployment that the national economy drags like a ball and chain.
By FZ Ouriaghli
