Morocco's mining sales decreases by 3.4% in 2002

Morocco's mining sector posted a 19.3 billion Dirham (US$ 1.93 billion) sales in 2002, as compares to 19.9 billions (US$ 1.99 billion) the previous year, i.e. a 3.4% decrease, the energy and mining department said in a release.

The downturn is due to the regression in the sales of crude mining products and fertilizers, respectively by 5.4% and 8.6%.

Contrarily, processed products scored a better sales like for phosphoric acid (2.7%) and others (1.9%).

In 2002, mining production reached 24.3 million tons against 23.2 million tons in 2001, which is a 4.5% rise. The progress is mainly due to phosphates whose production increased by 4.8% increase.

Production volume of processed products went up by 3.6% for phosphoric acid and 19.6% for others.