Country Economic Forecasts > Morocco

GDP growth accelerated to 4.6% in Q3 2015, with agricultural sector growth rising to 15.9% due to a 60%+ jump in cereal production following a record harvest. There have also been big increases in seafood and olive oil exports. As a result of the surge in agriculture, GDP is forecast to grow 4.5% in 2015 overall, up from 2.4% in 2014.But there remains an underlying weakness in economic activity, with non-agricultural growth slowing to 1.6% in Q2 and Q3 from 2% in Q1. The phosphate, tourism and construction sectors were all sluggish in mid-2015. And as agriculture starts to slow, overall GDP growth is expected to ease to 2.8% in 2016.The trade deficit in the first 10 months of 2015 fell by a third compared with the same period of 2014. This was largely driven by a drop of over 20% in the import bill, more than half of which was due to lower energy prices while food imports also fell. Partly as a result of the sharply reduced trade deficit, we now forecast that the current account gap will narrow to just 2.2% of GDP in 2015 from 5.7% in 2014 (and over 7% in 2013).