In his statistics, the delegate said that food prices increased by 16.3%, while non-food items increased by 2%, while transport fell by 0.1% and prices in restaurants and hotels increased by 6.7%.
She explained that the core inflation index, which excludes fixed-price items and high-volatility items, rose 0.3% in April from March 2023 and 7.6% from March 2023. to April 2022. Annual inflation in March reached 8.2%.
Inflation rates have reached unprecedented levels in Morocco, mainly due to rising food prices, due to what the government says are the repercussions of the Russian-Ukrainian war and the post-Covid pandemic. , in addition to Morocco’s exposure to the worst drought crisis in 40 years.
Morocco has suffered greatly from the drop in rainfall, and especially from the rise in world prices of raw materials, which has prompted the government to intervene on several occasions to reduce prices.
Morocco adopted a package of measures, which planned to provide general support for basic foodstuffs and not to increase the prices of regulated products, which led to partial stability in the prices of goods and services, which represent 25 % of average household expenditure.
Bank Al-Maghrib (Morocco’s central bank), at its last meeting, raised the main interest rate by 50 basis points to 3%, saying the move was necessary to curb inflation.
Morocco’s central bank said inflation, caused by high food prices, is expected to decline to 5.5% in 2023, after hitting 6.6% last year.
The bank expects Morocco’s economic growth rate to reach 2.6% this year compared to 1.2% in 2022, given expectations of a decline in the average cereal yield of 5.5 million tonnes.
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