Morocco’s Internal Debt Reaches $59.3 Bn

Morocco’s Internal Debt Reaches $59.3 Bn
TT

Morocco’s Internal Debt Reaches $59.3 Bn

Morocco’s Internal Debt Reaches $59.3 Bn

Morocco's internal debt stood at $59.3 billion at the end of July, up 2.7 percent from the beginning of the year, reaching 49.5 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).

The government resorted to borrowing $7.2 billion in the tender market of treasury bonds during the first seven months of this year instead of $6.81 billion during the same period last year, according to a bulletin issued by the General Treasury of the Kingdom.

The General Treasury said that the debt of the Moroccan government has become 61.63 percent of bonds over ten years, compared to 58 percent at the end of July last year.

The bulletin associated this development to the continued Treasury’s dynamic management of indebtedness by replacing short-term loans with long-term ones.

During the first seven months of this year, these operations included loans worth nearly $3.2 billion, which were almost entirely converted from loans with a maturity of less than 10 years to loans over 10 years.

In this context, the value of the amounts paid by the government for the internal debt increased 13.2 percent to reach $1.89 billion at the end of July, compared to $1.67 billion during the same period last year.



China Expands Visa-free Entry to More Countries in Bid to Boost Economy

Shoppers with their purchased goods walk past a popular outdoor shopping mall in Beijing, on Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
Shoppers with their purchased goods walk past a popular outdoor shopping mall in Beijing, on Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
TT

China Expands Visa-free Entry to More Countries in Bid to Boost Economy

Shoppers with their purchased goods walk past a popular outdoor shopping mall in Beijing, on Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
Shoppers with their purchased goods walk past a popular outdoor shopping mall in Beijing, on Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

China announced Friday that it would expand visa-free entry to citizens of nine more countries as it seeks to boost tourism and business travel to help revive a sluggish economy.
Starting Nov. 30, travelers from Bulgaria, Romania, Malta, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Estonia, Latvia and Japan will be able to enter China for up to 30 days without a visa, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said.
That will bring to 38 the number of countries that have been granted visa-free access since last year. Only three countries had visa-free access previously, and theirs had been eliminated during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The permitted length of stay for visa-free entry is being increased from the previous 15 days, Lin said, and people participating in exchanges will be eligible for the first time. China has been pushing people-to-people exchange between students, academics and others to try to improve its sometimes strained relations with other countries, The Associated Press reported.
China strictly restricted entry during the pandemic and ended its restrictions much later than most other countries. It restored the previous visa-free access for citizens of Brunei and Singapore in July 2023, and then expanded visa-free entry to six more countries — France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Malaysia — on Dec. 1 of last year.
The program has since been expanded in tranches. Some countries have announced visa-free entry for Chinese citizens, notably Thailand, which wants to bring back Chinese tourists.
For the three months from July through September this year, China recorded 8.2 million entries by foreigners, of which 4.9 million were visa-free, the official Xinhua News Agency said, quoting a Foreign Ministry consular official.