The Arab Monetary Fund (AMF) has published its unified economic report for 2021. It shows that Morocco ranks third in the Arab world in terms of the value of manufacturing exports in 2021, reaching 19.9 billion dollars.
The exports of manufacturing industries in Morocco were equivalent to 6.1% of the total exports of the Arab manufacturing industry, underlines the FMA.
The United Arab Emirates is the first country in the Arab world in terms of manufacturing exports in 2021, with a value of 142.5 billion dollars, which is equivalent to 43.9% of the total exports of the Arab manufacturing industry, followed by Saudi Arabia with about 69 billion dollars, with a share of 21.2%.
In addition, Egypt’s share in the volume of Arab manufacturing industries in 2021 stood at around 6.1%, Tunisia at 4%, Bahrain at 2.2%, Jordan at 2.1%, Kuwait 2%, Algeria 1.1%, Lebanon 0.8%, Libya 0.5%, Djibouti 0.5% and Iraq 0.1%.
According to the same document, the exports of the manufacturing industry in Arab countries amounted to 325 billion dollars in 2021, against about 244 billion dollars in 2020, an increase of about 33.2%, explaining that this growth is due to the easing of precautionary measures and the procedures taken to combat the Covid-19 pandemic and economic stimulus programs.
Exports from the manufacturing industry, further noted by the AMF, accounted for around 23.3% of total exports from Arab countries, compared to around 32.3% in 2020. This drop is due to the development of the contribution of extractive industries due to strong demand for oil and natural gas and their high prices worldwide.
In this sense, the report recommends Arab countries to move towards improving the competitiveness of their economies and to focus on strengthening industries whose pandemic has shown the need to accelerate their development, such as pharmaceutical and preventive, as well as modern and sustainable industries.