Survey: Moroccans expect costs to increase

Moroccans expect food prices to continue to increase in the coming period, an official survey revealed yesterday.

The High Commission for Planning said in a statement yesterday that 97.1 per cent of families expect food prices to continue rising while only 1.4 per cent expect them to decline.

Morocco’s finance ministry said earlier this year that inflation increased by 1.3 per cent last year and reached 1.6 per cent in February 2017.

As many as 87.4 per cent of families believe food prices have increased over the past 12 months, while 0.6 per cent said they had fallen.

According to the survey, one-third of Moroccan families had to borrow to meet spending in the first quarter of this year.

Meanwhile, 57.5 per cent of households in Morocco believe their income meets their spending while 35.1 per cent said they are in debt. Only 7.4 per cent said they can afford to save part of their income.

Nearly three-quarters of households, 74.5 per cent, said the rate of unemployment will increase over the next 12 months, compared to 9.6 per cent who expected it to fall.

According to the commission, the unemployment rate in Morocco fell by 0.3 per cent last year to reach 9.44 per cent from 9.7 per cent in the previous year.