Rnothing to say. Economically, Morocco had a good year last year. The figures just published by the High Commission for Planning (HCP) attest to this. The closing of the national accounts for the year 2021 indeed shows a growth of the national economy at 7.9%. This performance, which comes after the severe 7.2% recession in 2020 due in particular to the health crisis, is the result of a sharp 17.8% increase in agricultural activity following an exceptional agricultural campaign, and 6.6% of non-agricultural activities.
“Driven by domestic demand, this growth was achieved in a context of high inflation and an aggravation of the national economy’s need for financing”, specifies the HCP.
For 2022, economic operators are pulling their teeth. In a highly inflationary context, growth will be very sluggish, with the most optimistic projections counting on 1.8%. Rising input costs and tighter margins for companies, high cost of living for citizens, a government that is struggling to provide clear-cut responses to soaring food and energy prices…: the current economic picture is far from correct. to be ideal. Today, it is above all this imported inflation that is hurting the purses of Moroccan households and which remains a real headache for the executive. Who, at each exit, does not fail to let public opinion know that he is already doing enough, by showing the costs of compensation: they reached 11.8 billion dirhams at the end of April 2022, against 6, 3 billion dirhams during the same period of the past year, an increase of 87%.
The government is aware, however, that the compensation concerns only three products (common wheat flour, butane gas and sugar), while the most basic household basket includes at least forty consumer products. If he remains a spectator in the face of rising fuel prices, he nevertheless tries to activate other levers in order to be able to limit the increase in the prices of food products. It is in this context that the Government Council, meeting last Thursday, approved draft decree No. 2.22.393 relating to the suspension of import duties applicable to certain oilseeds and crude oils. Objective: to deal with the current situation marked by a significant rise in the price of raw materials and its impact on the selling price of the most consumed edible oils.
The government has thus decided to suspend the import duties applicable to raw oilseeds of sunflower, soybean and rapeseed, as of June 3, 2022.
A more than necessary measure
Morocco remains among the top 10 importers of edible oil in the world. In 2020-2021, 77,000 tonnes of rapeseed and sunflower oil and 460,000 tonnes of rapeseed and sunflower meal were consumed in Morocco. The Kingdom purchased, in 2020/2021, 450,000 tons of soybean oil on the international market, making it the 7th largest importer in the world according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Thus, the local production of oilseeds covers only 2% of national needs. By importing 98% of the raw materials used in the manufacture of edible oils, the Kingdom therefore bears the brunt of price fluctuations on international markets. This has repercussions on citizens and their purchasing power: the prices of table oils have been on an upward trend for several months in Morocco, the cost of a 5-litre can having almost doubled.
The suspension of import duties applicable to certain oilseeds and crude oils should therefore only slow down the rise in prices, but not reverse the trend. Because the tensions on international prices, maintained among other things by the Russian-Ukrainian war, are still persistent, despite a lull observed in the last two months. After reaching their “highest levels ever recorded” in March, world food prices fell slightly in May for the second consecutive month, with the exception of wheat prices which continued to soar (+5.6 %).
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), “after a historic high in March due to the war in Ukraine, the FAO food price index, which tracks the monthly variation of international prices of a basket of basic food products, contracted by 0.6% under the effect of a fall in the price of vegetable oils and dairy products”.
Thus, the FAO index of vegetable oils fell by 3.5%, under the effect of a fall in the prices of palm oil, sunflower, soya or rapeseed, “partly due to the lifting Indonesia’s temporary export ban on palm oil”.
A matter of sovereignty
Currently, the whole challenge for Morocco is to try to reduce its dependence on the outside. It is in this context that the Moroccan oilseed industry has declined strong ambitions through its strategy at “Al Jayl Al Akhdar”. Objective: to double the areas sown to 80,000 hectares by 2030, including 30,000 in rapeseed and 50,000 for sunflower. This should make it possible to achieve a production capable of satisfying, by this deadline, 15% of the consumption needs of the domestic market against 1.7% in 2019, and generate 170,000 jobs.
This ambition must however be part of a much more global approach: that of creating a national and integrated ecosystem of the strategic stock of basic products and this, in application of the high royal guidelines. According to the Minister of Agriculture, Maritime Fisheries, Rural Development and Water and Forests, Mohamed Sadiki, the government is already getting down to it. Last April, he assured Parliament that his department has set up a team dedicated to identifying the products concerned by this stock and the measures that will be put in place to ensure “food sovereignty”. These products, according to the Minister, consist of two categories. The first concerns the basic products that national production does not allow to cover, namely cereals, sugar and edible oils, while the second concerns agricultural inputs, in particular seeds, nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides that are not produced locally.
In the meantime, we will have to face the facts: the national economy will continue to lend itself to the uncertainties linked to the international situation.
F. Ouriaghli