Morocco's GDP to fall by 1.9 to 2.6 percent because of dismantling custom barriers with Europe, official

The dismantling of custom barriers between Morocco and the European Union will cause Morocco's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to fall by a rate of 1.9 to 2.6 percent, a Moroccan official said, MAP reported.

The customs barriers dismantling will cover 40 to 45 percent custom receipts, Abderrazzak Mossadeq, director-general of the customs administration, told a recent meeting in Tangiers.

Custom barriers between Morocco and the European Union are expected to disappear in 2012 when the bilateral free exchange zone will come to being by virtue of an association accord concluded between the two sides in 1996.

Mossadeq said it is possible to make up for the loss by encouraging economic activity at the local level, based on the principles of liberalism and encouragement of foreign investments.

Touching on the impact of custom barriers dismantling on the Moroccan industrial sector, the official said the equipment goods will be first category that will be covered by the dismantling measure in the first year of the enforcement of the Association accord. In this regard, he recalled that 60 percent of Moroccan industrial firms export their products against 10 percent only before the beginning of the structural adjustment program in 1984-85.

He added that a total opening of the agricultural market risks to pose problems to Morocco in view of the country's weak agricultural output.