The exit of Morocco on the international finance market, imperative for the realization of the external financing provided for by the finance law 2023 (LF-23), responds to the new orientation of the Treasury, estimates Attijari Global Research (AGR). The 2021-2022 period marked a clear shift in the rate of achievement of external financing provided for in the framework of the Finance Laws, notes AGR in its recent report “Research report – Fixed Income” entitled “Towards a new Treasury financing strategy in 2023”.
The latter, continues the same source, did not exceed 60% on average during the period studied against 105% in 2020. Originally, an absence of the Treasury on the international market for the past 2 years due to the visible hardening sovereign debt financing conditions since the end of 2021.
Under these conditions, this international exit seems to bode well for the total realization of the external financing planned within the framework of the LF-23. These are projected at 60 billion dirhams (MMDH), an increase of 50% compared to the estimates of the LF-22 and represent double the external financing carried out in 2022. With an international issue of more than 26 billion dirhams, the external achievement rate would stand at 45% in March 2023, i.e. a balance to be financed internationally of nearly 34 billion dirhams by the end of 2023.
In addition, AGR recalls that Morocco succeeded, at the beginning of the year, in its first international loan, after two years of absence, noting that this lifting in currency of a Eurobond of 2.5 billion dollars (MM$), oversubscribed 4.6 times, attests to the quality of the Kingdom’s signature in an unfavorable context marked by the return of risk aversion.
Compared to emerging markets, Morocco still seems to benefit from more attractive financing conditions, through a non-negligible average PDR spread of 213 PBS in 2023, underlines the same source.
AGR analysts also point out that the timing of this new Treasury outflow internationally is judicious, adding that the state treasurer has thus deferred the decision to issue it in March 2023 instead of Q4-22. , thus enabling it to avoid the unfavorable phase marked by a sharp rise in spreads and a sharp appreciation of the dollar internationally in 2022.
To this end, Morocco thus becomes the 2nd African country after Egypt to issue on the Eurobond market in 2023 and joins the TOP-10 of emerging market issues, after Saudi Arabia ($10 billion), Indonesia ($3bn) and Turkey ($2.75bn) since the start of 2023.