Morocco Economic Monitor, June 2021 : Building Momentum for Reform
Morocco stands out as a country that has seized the COVID-19 (coronavirus) crisis as an opportunity to launch an ambitious program of transformative reforms. After its initial efforts to mitigate the immediate effects of the pandemic on households...
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| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2021
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/123031623861349683/Morocco-Economic-Monitor-Building-Momentum-for-Reform http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35763 |
| Summary: | Morocco stands out as a country that has
seized the COVID-19 (coronavirus) crisis as an opportunity
to launch an ambitious program of transformative reforms.
After its initial efforts to mitigate the immediate effects
of the pandemic on households and firms, the authorities
have launched various policies to correct longstanding
inequities and overcome some of the structural bottlenecks
that have constrained the performance of the Moroccan
economy in the recent past. This reform program has the
following pillars: (i) the creation of a Strategic
Investment Fund (the Mohammed VI Fund) to support the
private sector; (ii) the overhaul of the social protection
framework to boost human capital; (iii) the restructuring of
Morocco’s large network of State Owned Enterprises. In
addition, the government has recently unveiled the terms of
a new development model that places significant emphasis on
human development and gender equity, and on the need to
reinvigorate recent efforts to incentivize private
entrepreneurship and boost competitiveness. If successfully
implemented, these reforms could lead to a stronger and more
equitablegrowth path. There are various channels through
which the reform impetus described above could increase the
growth potential of the Moroccan economy: (i) by increasing
market contestability, levelling the playing field, and
streamlining the role of the SOE sector in the economy, more
firms would be enabled to enter markets, grow and create
jobs; (ii) a more dynamic private sector could make a better
use of the large stock of physical capital accumulated over
past decades, thus increasing the growth dividend of
existing infrastructure, which so far has disappointed;
(iii) accelerating the pace of human capital formation could
enable more Moroccan citizens to realize their productivity
potential, which would contribute to raise living standards
and accelerate the growth of aggregate output. |
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