Morocco's trade deficit decrease by 23.3 percent during two first months of 2002

Morocco's external trade deficit during the first two months of 2002 stood at 5.55 billion Dirhams (about US$ 482.6 million), scoring an decrease of 23.3 percent compared to the same period the previous year when the deficit amounted to 7.24 billion DH ($629.5 million).

The exchange office, which disclosed the figures, explained the decrease by a drop of 8.2 percent of imports, whose value went down from 20.4 billion DH (about $ 1.77 billion) to 18.71 billion DH ($1.62 billion), while exports have stood at around 13.1 billion DH ($1.13 billion)

This evolution enabled to improve the coverage rate of imports by exports by 5.8 points, as the rate was of 70.3 percent instead of 64.5 percent during the January-February period of 2001.

The overall value of Morocco's foreign trade transactions reached by the end of February 2002 some 31.88 billion DH ($2.77 billion), the exchange office said.

With the exception of equipment goods imports, which increased by 12.6 percent, all other products groups have scored a drop. Energy products imports have thus dropped by 30.3 percent, consumption goods by 11.2 percent), semi-finished products by 8 percent, food products by 6.1 percent and unprocessed products by 7.4 percent.

At a time exports have practically stagnated, exports of phosphates and phosphates by-products, which make up 15.6 percent of Morocco's overall exports, recorded a drop of 4.3 percent, going down from 2.15 billion DH ($186.95 million) to about 2.0 billion DH ($173.91 million).