Morocco’s planning agency warns against state-run companies’ growing dept spree

Morocco’s economy finances costs will rise if state-owned companies don’t control their external borrowing spree, reported Bloomberg quoting the country’s planning agency.

Chief planner Ahmed Lahlimi told the American magazine that «strict vigilance is in order today», warning against the «external debt of public companies that has started to slightly surpass the government’s».

According to the same source, state-run companies’ external debt will reach 17 percent of GDP in 2019. To put it in other words, phosphate giant OCP and railway company ONCF had 118 billion dirhams of external debt in 2012-2016 to fund investments.

For Lahlimi the economy’s financing gap will reach 4 percent of the GDP in 2018 and 2019 as compared to 5.5 percent in 2012-2017. The government will have to narrow the gap in an equal way through debt and foreign direct investments, Lahlimi signaled.