The decision of Bank Al-Maghrib (BAM) to raise its key rate by 50 basis points (bps) to 2% is a choice that reconciles the desire to support businesses and that of curbing inflation, the economist stressed. and public policy specialist, Abdelghani Youmni.
“The choice of a contraction and a tightening of monetary policy followed by an increase in the key rate is a decision that reconciles, on the one hand, the desire to continue supporting businesses and requests for loans for more investments and consumption favorable to employment and economic growth, and on the other hand the choice to curb inflation, defend the dirham and encourage internal and external savings”, said Mr. Youmni in an interview at the MAP. This decision is an “open secret” pronounced without specifying the content of the summer of 2022 conditioned by the evolution of the national and international situation, noted the economist, recalling in this respect that in 2020, BAM fell and twice the key rate in March and then in June, due to the effects of the freezing of the economy following the 120-day confinement, bringing it down from 2.25% to 1.5%.
Also, he added, it must be recognized that the governance of the Moroccan monetary authorities through an accommodating and macro-prudential policy has always been the norm and that it has always borne fruit in stabilizing prices and in maintaining the robustness of the dirham in the face of turbulence on the foreign exchange and commodity markets.
Another element of the equation to be taken into account is that inflation in Morocco is not monetary but is imported and fueled, driven by the aggregation of external factors such as increases in the cost of freight, the price of oil, gas and cereals and internal as the effects of drought and especially the incessant increases in the price of gasoline and diesel at the pump, said the expert.
With MAP
