The national currency depreciated by 2.4% against the US dollar in 2019, covering a bull market effect of 0.8% and a bear basket effect of 3.2%, following the depreciation of the euro by 5.2% against the dollar, according to Bank Al-Maghrib (BAM).
Against the euro, the dirham has risen by 3%, specifies BAM in its annual report on the economic, monetary and financial situation for the 2019 financial year, presented on Wednesday to HM King Mohammed VI, by the Wali Bank Al-Maghrib, Abdellatif Jouahri.
Compared to the currencies of the other main partner and competitor countries, the dirham was up overall, with notably appreciations of 14.9% against the Turkish lira, 8.5% against the Tunisian dinar and 1. 9% vis-à-vis the Chinese yuan. Consequently, the effective exchange rate increased by 2.6% in nominal terms and taking into account domestic inflation lower than that of partner and competitor countries, this appreciation came out to 0.4% in real terms.
In addition, the central bank points out that the dynamics of the interbank foreign exchange market continued with an increase in the average volume of monthly currency exchanges against dirhams by 21.2% to 21 billion dirhams (billion dirhams), noting that no However, the auction operation did not take place in 2019.
With regard to bank transactions with customers, the volume of spot exchanges of currencies against dirhams rose from 21.7 billion dirhams to 23.1 billion dirhams for purchases and from 21.1 billion dirhams to 23.6 billion dirhams for sales . The balance of these operations came out, therefore, negative at 525 million dirhams (MDH), after being positive at 536 MDH in 2018.
As for forward transactions, purchases increased by 3.3% to 11.5 billion dirhams on average while sales decreased by 44.6% to 2.2 billion dirhams.
According to the report, the volume of exchanges of banks with their foreign correspondents stood on average monthly at 41.1 billion dirhams, up 11% compared to 2018, while banks’ deposits in foreign currencies abroad have increased. fell 19.4% to 6.8 billion dirhams.
Under these conditions, the banks’ foreign exchange position (the value of their foreign currency assets net of commitments, including those recorded off-balance sheet) fell from MAD 6 billion on average to MAD 1.5 billion, and remained positive. all year round, with the exception of June, July and December.
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