Morocco’s Haut Commissariat au Plan (HCP) said that it anticipates foreign demand to drop by approximately 18% in the second quarter of 2020, affected mostly by the decreased global trade and economic slowdown faced by its commercial trade partners.
The government body, in its latest publication, said that national exports will drop by 25.1% affected by the decline in sales of most of the goods, especially cars, textiles and aircraft vehicles.
This downward trend is also recorded at the level of imports which, for their part, will decline by 26.7%, “impacted by the decline in purchases of capital goods, energy products, consumer goods, raw products and semi-finished products.”
Only purchases of foodstuffs will resist this situation, “fueled by purchases of cereals, animal feed and sugar”, according to the HCP.
Diminishing the effects of the COVID-19 health crisis, domestic demand would have contributed negatively to growth in the second quarter of 2020.
Household consumption, in volume terms, fell by 6.7%, year-on-year, instead of 1.4% in the previous quarter.
This drop will impact household spending on manufactured goods, notably clothing and equipment, as well as transport, catering and leisure.
Spending on food will keep its growth rate.
Conversely, general government consumption will strengthen by 6%, driven by the increase in operating and social services spending.
As for investment, its development will be significantly tempered by the slowdown in investment in industrial products and greater sluggishness in real estate investment, given the halt in production units and strong destocking of businesses.
In annual variation, the drop in investment is expected to reach -49.4% in the second quarter of 2020, instead of 4.8% a quarter earlier.