At the national level, growth would have accelerated to 4 percent in 2017 and is forecast to reach 3.3% in 2018, Bank Al-Maghrib (Morocco's central bank) said on Tuesday. «At the national level, growth would have accelerated to 4 percent in 2017, driven by a rebound of 14.8 percent in agricultural value added while non-agricultural activities would have grown by merely 2.7 percent,» the source added in a release following the first quarterly meeting of the year held by the bank's board. For 2018, Bank Al-Maghrib's forecasts, based on rainfall data and the situation of the vegetation cover as of March 10, predict a cereal production of about 80 million quintals and a 2.3 percent increase in the agricultural value added, it said, noting that non-agricultural activities would continue to recover, up 3.2 percent, which would drive overall growth to 3.3 percent. In 2019, GDP would expand by 3.5 percent, with a 1.8 percent increase in agricultural value added –assuming a cereal production of 70 million quintals- and a 3.6 percent rise in non-agricultural activities. On the demand side, these developments mainly reflect slight acceleration of investment and continued momentum in household consumption, while the contribution of net exports would be negative in 2018 and almost nil in 2019, the source noted.
