ITR - Mediterranean News - Heather Carter ITR - Morocco - for InTouchRadio.net UK - GLOBAL

Heather Carter ITR - Mediterranean Region for ITR UK-GLOBAL

Morocco News:

Morocco: Remittances Burgeoning

Expatriate remittances to Morocco increased again in the first six months of this year, bolstering incomes in the kingdom and bringing welcome direct investment to a range of sectors.

Remittances to the kingdom from Moroccans resident abroad (MREs, in the French acronym) totalled $3.5bn in the first half of 2008, up 5% on the same period last year, according to the Office des Changes (SADOC), Morocco's exchange rate monitoring body.

Morocco receives more remittances than any other country in the Middle g
Expatriate remittances to Morocco increased again in the first six months of this year, bolstering incomes in the kingdom and bringing welcome direct investment to a range of sectors.

Remittances to the kingdom from Moroccans resident abroad (MREs, in the French acronym) totalled $3.5bn in the first half of 2008, up 5% on the same period last year, according to the Office des Changes (SADOC), Morocco's exchange rate monitoring body.

Morocco receives more remittances than any other country in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region after Egypt. According to the World Bank, last year the country drew in $5.7bn in remittances, which have averaged $2.6bn annually since 2003.

Some 3.3m Moroccans live abroad, nearly three times as many as 15 years ago. While recent years have seen a geographical broadening of the Moroccan diaspora, 80% live in the EU, with an estimated 1.6m Moroccans in France and 700,000 in Spain, the two biggest sources of remittances.

Around half of the emigrants are female, reflecting the fact that increasing numbers of single women emigrate.

Remittances to Morocco from MREs take a variety of forms, and have therefore helped bolster growth in several areas of the economy. According to the Conseil Déontologique des Valeurs Mobilières (CDVM), the country's capital market authority, 58% of overseas investors in the Casablanca Stock Exchange (CSE) are Moroccan expatriates.

Meanwhile, Morocco's Organismes de placement collectif en valeurs mobilières (OPCVMs), or mutual funds, drew in $1.68bn from MREs in 2007 - representing 27.8% of total investments in the organisations.

The real estate and tourism sectors have also benefitted from expatriates, the former by direct investments in property in the country and the latter from both investments and income from those returning to take holidays in their homeland.

More broadly, remittances continue to play their traditional role of supplementing the income of expatriates' families in Morocco, and boosting foreign currency earnings.

According to the Moroccan Centre for Economics, quoted in the local press, "fund transfers made by Moroccan expatriates are a major consideration for the Moroccan economy, not just as a way of supporting household revenues, but also, and more importantly, as a source of extra savings and an essential source of foreign currency".

Such is the importance of remittances to the kingdom that the government is encouraging expatriates to invest more in the country.

In August, Morocco signed up to an accord to set up electronic money transfers though technology developed by the Universal Postal Union (UPU), the UN's postal agency. Other signatories included Jordan and Tunisia, which also draw in large amounts of remittances, and Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, to which increasing numbers of Moroccans have emigrated.

According to a UPU statement, the system should help "improve access for rural populations to secure reliable money transfer services through formal channels".

The facilitation and formalisation of remittance transfers is a key step in keeping inflows steady. Some MREs have voiced concerns about corruption and bureaucracy in Morocco, making them reluctant to transfer or invest large sums.

The Conseil de la Communauté Marocaine à l'Etranger (CCME), a government body representing MREs, is planning to carry out a study into expatriates' investments in Morocco, partly to investigate the difficulties that they face. The CCME hopes that this will lead to a new drive to encourage investment by MREs.

These developments are well-timed. With Spain's economy suffering, particularly from a struggling construction sector reeling from a burst real estate bubble, there are fears that remittances from across the Gibraltar Straits will fall.

According to the Moroccan Centre for Economics, the effects of Spain's downturn will be "slight", but with other European economies also experiencing tougher economic times, the authorities will be keen to ensure that any losses are offset by easier and better regulated processes of remittance transfer and expatriate investment in the country.

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