RABAT, April 15: The International Monetary Fund expects to raise its forecast for economic growth in Morocco this year to above 6 per cent from 5.4 per cent on strength in agriculture, tourism and construction, a senior IMF official said on Friday.

The early indicators lead us to believe the growth will be far higher than the original anticipated growth, IMF Deputy Managing Director Agustin Carstens told Reuters in Rabat. “We were expecting 5.4 per cent but it might be higher than six.”

Certainly agriculture has been encouraging, but I think also tourism is doing quite well. Other indicators the government has show construction and housing are doing quite well.

He also said Morocco’s textile industry was suffering less than expected from an increase in competition from Asian manufacturers.

He said the new growth estimate was provisional and that a final forecast would be made in the second half of June.

Morocco’s government is trying to stimulate sluggish private investment to cut unemployment through reforms of the financial sector, labour market and taxation, and by pushing through free-trade deals and improving the country’s infrastructure.

An initiative to double the number of tourists to 10 million annually by 2010 took a leap forward late last month when two Dubai property firms agreed to a series of ambitious tourism investments worth a combined $9 billion.

Briefing reporters after meeting senior officials in the capital Rabat, Carstens hailed moves to bolster the independence and supervisory powers of Morocco’s central bank and the government’s medium-term fiscal deficit target of 3 per cent.

But he said more fiscal flexibility would help the oil-importing kingdom absorb possible external shocks such as a further rise in energy prices.—Reuters