"For 2020 as a whole, exports would, according to Bank Al-Maghrib's projections, fall by 16.6% before improving by 22.4% in 2021, driven in particular by the expected increase in shipments of the automotive sector," said the bank in a statement following its Board's third quarterly meeting of the year 2020.

At the same time, imports of goods would contract by 17.4% before increasing by 17% in 2021. As for travel receipts, they would slump sharply from 78.8 billion in 2019 to 23.9 billion dirhams in 2020, then rebound to 49.1 billion dirhams in 2021, the same source added.

More resilient to the crisis, Moroccan expatriates' remittances would show a limited decline of 5% to 61.5 billion before improving by 2.4% to 63 billion in 2021.

Against this background, and taking into account grant inflows of 7.2 billion dirhams in 2020 and 2.6 billion in 2021, the current account deficit would widen to 6% of GDP in 2020, as against 10.3% forecasted in June, and ease to 5.2% in 2021.

As to FDI inflows, they would decline to the equivalent of 1.5% of GDP this year, against 2.9% in 2019, before recovering in 2021 to the average level observed before the crisis.

Thus, bearing in mind the exceptional mobilization of external financing, the outstanding amount of official reserves assets would stand at around 294.7 billion dirhams at the end of 2020 and 289 billion dirhams at the end of 2021, ensuring coverage of around 6 months and 20 days of imports of goods and services.