Morocco among most indebted African countries

Morocco’s outstanding foreign debt in 2021 amounted to $65 billion, placing it among the 10 most indebted African countries from abroad, according to the World Bank.

The World Bank estimated that Morocco’s total foreign debt was $65.414 billion in 2021.

It was almost the same figure as the previous year, when  debt amounted to 65.726 billion.

In its latest report “International Debt Report (IDR) 2022, Updated International Debt Statistics”, the international financial institution indicates that this $65.414 billion includes the use of IMF credit at $4.085 billion compared to $3.906 billion in 2020.

In addition, Morocco’s long-term foreign debt amounted to $55.125 billion in 2021 compared to $53.673 billion in 2020.

At the same time, short-term foreign debt reached $9.079 billion in 2021 compared to USD 8.146 billion in 2020.

According to the report, the ratio between outstanding foreign debt and Morocco’s exports was 13% in 2021.

The World Bank also points out that the total external debt stock of African countries was $1,074 billion, including $790 billion contracted by sub-Saharan African countries and $284 billion by African countries in the MENA region.

African foreign debt is strongly concentrated in 10 of the most indebted African countries with an overall debt of $734 billion, or more than 68.34% of the continent’s total foreign debt.

These countries are: South Africa ($170.01 billion), Egypt (143.25 billion), Nigeria (76.21 billion), Angola (67.28 billion), Morocco (65.41 billion), Mozambique (62.82 billion), Tunisia (41.6 billion), Kenya (41.20 billion), Ghana (36.18 billion) and Ethiopia (30.02 billion).

The IDR, an annual World Bank publication that presents statistics and external debt analyses for the 121 low- and middle-income countries that report to the World Bank’s Debt Notification System, found that debt-related risks for all developing economies, whether low- and middle-income is increasing.

At the end of 2021, the external debt of these economies amounted to $9,000 billion, more than double that of ten years ago.

During the same period, the total foreign debt of the member countries of the International Development Association (IDA) almost tripled to $1,000 billion.

Rising interest rates and the risk of slowing down global growth have led a large number of countries into a debt crisis.

About 60% of the poorest countries are already at high risk of over-indebtedness or are already in difficulty.

At the end of 2021, debt service payments of IDA-eligible countries on long-term and publicly guaranteed public debt amounted to $48.2 billion, or 10.3% of their exports of goods and services and 1.8% of their Gross National Income (GNI), according to the report.

These percentages increased significantly compared to 2010, when they amounted to 3.2% and 0.7% respectively.

In 2022, payments under the IDA countries’ debt service on their public and state-guaranteed debt are expected to increase by 35% to more than $62 billion, one of the largest annual increases in the last two decades.

China is expected to account for 66% of debt service payments to be made by IDA countries on their official bilateral debt.