Morocco's trade deficit widened by 43.6% by the end of April 2022 compared to the same period in 2021, the Exchange Control Office has said.
Morocco's trade gap widened to 91.04 billion Dirhams in April, the source pointed out in a release, noting that the coverage rate of imports by exports has reached 60.4%.
Exports amounted to 139.01 billion Dirhams (+34%), while imports rose by 37.8% to 230.05 billion Dirhams.
The increase in goods imports concerned almost all product groups. For its part, the energy bill increased to 43.79 billion Dirhams, due to the increase in supplies of gas-oil and fuel-oil (+MAD 12.14 bln), according to the same source.
Thus, the purchases of finished consumer products increased by 53% while raw material purchases jumped by 72.6%.
As for exports, their increase concerned all sectors, mainly the sectors of phosphates and derivatives (98.6%), agriculture and agribusiness (15.4%), textile and leather (+33.6%), and automobile (+12.9%).
