3.5% Increase of Moroccan Net International Reserves
Rabat – Moroccan net international reserves amounted to MAD 248.2 billion as of April 21, 2017, registering a 3.5 percent year-on-year increase, announced Bank Al-Maghrib (BAM).
These reserves rose by 0.4 percent on a weekly basis, said BAM, which has just published its weekly indicators for April 20-26.
During this period, the total amount of Bank Al-Maghrib’s interventions amounted to MAD 18.5 billion, MAD 14 billion of which was injected in the form of 7-day advances through a call for tenders and an amount of MAD 4.5 billion, was awarded under the support program for the financing of SMEs.
As for interbank rates, Bank Al-Maghreb reports a 2.27 percent stagnation, compared with the previous week, while the volume of trade showed an increase from MAD 3.8 billion to MAD 4.1 billion. At the call of tenders of April 26, Bank Al-Maghrib injected an amount of MAD 16 billion in the form of 7-day advances.
On the stock market, the MASI index has marked a significant increase, thus reducing its 2.2 percent underperformance since the beginning of the year. BAM noted that this weekly evolution is mainly due to increases in the sectoral indices of the insurance sector with a 3.2 percent growth, real estate sector with 2 percent and construction and building materials with 0.3 percent.
On the other hand, the values of the banks and pharmaceuticals indices decreased by 0.4 percent and 2.3 percent respectively, while transactions totaled MAD 402.2 million, MAD 336.6 million of which was realized in the central market.
M3’s pace of growth slowed to 5.2 percent, after registering 5.4 percent in February, mainly reflecting a 10.1 percent drop in the deposit accounts after 9.6 percent last month, and a slowdown in the growth of banks deposits at 7.5 percent.
Similarly, the rate of increase in holdings of economic agents in money market fund securities dropped to 7.9 percent from 8.6 percent a month earlier, and that of demand deposits to 4.7 percent. Fiduciary circulation, on the other hand, increased by 6.2 percent after 5.6 percent.
In contrast, M3 growth was mainly due to the slowdown in growth of net international reserves from 7.3 percent to 4.3 percent and net claims on the central government from 12.4 percent to 9.7 percent. On the other hand, the pace of bank credit growth accelerated to 4.5 percent after registering a 3.7 percent increase the previous month.