Publications /
Policy Brief

Back
The national automotive industry faced with the Covid-19: Should we be worried about the impact on the current account?
September 2, 2020

The year 2020 is one of the most difficult years for the global automotive industry. The pandemic first appeared in a region of China known for its developed automotive sector. Initially, it was the South Asian manufacturers who first felt the impact of the shutdown in China before the pandemic shifted to Europe and the United States and before the disruption of value chains took on a global dimension. In Morocco, the sector has not remained immune to this turbulent context and its export performance shows a decline of nearly 40% in turnover over the first half of the year. However, the net effect of this contraction on foreign exchange inflows is not expected to be as significant, for two main reasons: The first is linked to the sector's heavy dependence on imported inputs, which would reduce the sector's demand for intermediate goods, and the second relates to the predominance of foreign capital in the sector, which will see the repatriation of its earnings dwindle. It is therefore essential to broaden the scope of analysis of the spillover effects of the automotive sector and, by the same token, of Morocco's global trades beyond the notion of domestic value added achieved in exports. Indeed, it is useful to take account of the distribution of value added between the factors of production, which suggests the predominance of the capital earnings factor - foreign capital in the case of the motor vehicle sector - prone to repatriate all or part of its profits. In parallel to promoting Morocco's attractiveness - a policy crucial for technology transfer and integration into global value chains - decision-makers should work to consolidate the presence of national capital in the industrial ecosystem and place it at the center of any industrial policy capable of leading industry to a new path of development.

RELATED CONTENT

  • February 10, 2020
    This book studies Morocco’s growth and employment prospects in the context of a new growth model aimed at avoiding a middle-income trap, in a rapidly changing international environment marked by increased competition from low-wage economies and growing automation of low-skilled jobs. Chapter 1 discusses the changing nature of the international environment facing Morocco and provides the rationale for changing the country’s growth model. Chapter 2 reviews the growth model that Morocc ...
  • September 24, 2019
    En pleine transition ordonnée de son régime de change, sous l'autorité bienveillante du Fonds monétaire international (FMI), le Royaume du Maroc est un exemple très concret des avantages et des inconvénients des deux régimes de change dominants ces dernières décennies/change fixe et change flottant /. L’objet de cette note est de rappeler, tout d'abord, les fondamentaux économiques des deux systèmes et leur environnement historique (I). Ensuite, à la lumière de ces fondamentaux, pré ...
  • Authors
    Afrique Contemporaine
    February 28, 2019
    Dans son édition n°266, la revue scientifique Afrique Contemporaine consacre son Dossier à la question de l’industrialisation en Afrique. D’après la Rédaction de la publication, le choix de la thématique s’imposait d’autant plus que « la recomposition de l’ordre mondial repose la question de la place du continent à l’échelle planétaire, en l’occurrence sur le plan économique, social et environnemental tout à la fois. » Outre la coordination du Dossier, Dr. Karim Et Aynaoui, Préside ...
  • Authors
    Yassine Msadfa
    February 25, 2019
    La transformation structurelle d’une économie demeure un point de passage nécessaire pour toute nation qui souhaite gravir les échelons du développement, cette transformation est souvent tributaire de la capacité d’une économie à s’ériger d’une société agraire de subsistance, dans son stade initial, vers une économie de productivité. Pour ce qui est du Maroc, le débat a pris de l’ampleur quant à la capacité des dynamiques actuelles à accélérer le rythme de l’activité économique au p ...
  • Authors
    September 21, 2018
    This blog is based on remarks delivered at the Think-Tank Summit in Buenos Aires on 18 September 2018 held under the G-20’s Argentine Presidency.  Africa has an enormous infrastructure gap that impedes its development. The Compact with Africa (CwA) is an international policy initiative sponsored under the German presidency of the G-20 in 2017 designed to bridge that gap. Intended to draw in the private sector in developing Africa’s infrastructure through a combination of Private-Pu ...
  • Authors
    Yassine Msadfa
    September 21, 2017
    Les chaînes de valeur mondiales offrent de nouvelles opportunités de transformation structurelle pour les pays en développement. Aujourd’hui la vision des chaînes de valeur mondiales se limitant à l’analyse des flux commerciaux et des IDE à l’échelle globale n’est plus suffisante pour répondre aux questions clés du positionnement et de la remontée dans ces chaînes de valeur, de la dynamique de la capture de la valeur et de sa pérennisation. La réponse à ces questions appelle un écla ...
  • Authors
    August 9, 2017
    This paper reports on the recent developments in the construction of an interregional input-output matrix for Morocco (IIOM-MOR). As part of an ongoing project that aims to specify and calibrate an interregional CGE (ICGE) model for the country, a fully specified interregional input-output database was developed under conditions of limited information. Such database is needed for future calibration of the ICGE model. We conduct an analysis of the intraregional and interregional shar ...
  • Authors
    Taoufik Abbad
    July 5, 2017
    Le processus continu et renforcé de l’accumulation du capital physique, dans lequel s’est engagé le Maroc depuis le début des années 2000, a permis de préserver la stabilité des équilibres fondamentaux et d’amortir les différents chocs exogènes, aussi bien internes qu’externes. Cependant, cet effort d’accumulation n’a pas permis d’insuffler un accroissement significatif des gains de productivité et d’accélérer la transformation de la base productive. Ce Policy Brief propose de décri ...
  • Authors
    Taoufik Abbad
    July 5, 2017
    The continuous and reinforced process of accumulating physical capital, in which Morocco has embarked since the early 2000s, has helped to preserve the stability of the fundamental equilibrium and cushion the economy from various external and exogenous shocks. However, these accumulation efforts have not led to a significant increase in productivity gains or to an accelerated transformation of the productive base. This Policy Brief aims to describe the underpinnings of the capital a ...
  • Authors
    Karim EL Mokri
    October 13, 2016
    Morocco is now more than ever threatened by the trap of middle-income economies. On one hand, it is caught between increased competition from low-income countries in low productivity and labor-intensive sectors and, on the other hand, the difficulty of accelerating its pace of structural transformation towards activities with higher value added and higher technological content. International experience shows that few countries have managed to climb to the status of an advanced econo ...