Morocco Property News: Morocco expects 9.4 million tourists this year, 6 percent higher than in 2009 but slightly below a target of 10 million set before recessions hit its major markets, the tourism minister has said.
Tourism is the biggest source of foreign currency for Morocco and despite the fact that global tourism contracted 4.3 percent last year and fell 6 percent in Europe (the origin of most of Morocco’s foreign visitors), Morocco has managed to keep visitor numbers growing by 6.5 percent.
“Achieving 94 percent of our (2010) goal, bearing in mind that we just went through one of the biggest global crises in a century, is a very satisfying result,” Tourism Minister Yassir Znagui told reporters late on Monday. Znagui said the number of visitors rebounded by 16 percent in the first three months of 2010 to 1.72 million, night stays grew by 7 percent to 3.7 million and tourism income grew by 12 percent to 10.2 billion Dirhams (about 900 million Euros).
In addition, he said, the strategy worked out by his department would no longer limit itself to traditional markets, particularly France and Spain, but it would target other countries from Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
Znagui said despite the global downturn, Morocco “was the only country from the Mediterranean basin to see a 6% increase in 2009 arrivals. According to statistics from the Moroccan ministry of Tourism, the French are on top with 3.1 million tourists (+4%), followed by Spanish (1.8 millions, +10%), Belgians (469,000 tourists, +12%), Dutch (443,000 tourists, +12%), Germans (423,000 tourists, +1%), British (362,000 tourists, -7%) and Italians (318,000 tourists, +11%).
Morocco Central Bank Says Housing Market Not Stagnating
Morocco’s property market is likely to pick up in coming months, the central bank told Reuters, playing down fears of prolonged correction that could hold back economic growth in the north African country.
The price slowdown “has been quite brief and (the market) should very probably continue to resume its dynamism in the coming quarters,” the central bank, known as Bank Al Maghrib, said in emailed replies, received on Wednesday, to questions from Reuters.
It said prices have begun rising again and the sector should “continue to present important investment opportunities given that most analyses suggest that demand significantly exceeds supply, especially in social and mid-income housing.”
A Moroccan construction boom continued during the global economic downturn, helping prop up the economy even as local exporters faced slumping demand from recession-hit Europe. Most of the building activity is in real estate after banking reforms gave middle-income families easier access to mortgages and thousands of apartment blocks sprang up to replace slums in the kingdom’s teeming northern cities.
Housing growth has also underpinned the Casablanca stock market as local investors poured money into local real estate companies such as Addoha, which now accounts for over 10 percent of the bourse’s capitalisation, according to traders.
Property prices have corrected and sales have slowed since late 2008 however local analysts have voiced concern that Morocco may have been experiencing a property bubble. But the bank rejected that, saying that a 7 percent rise in property prices between the first quarter of 2006 and the third quarter of 2008 “is below that seen at the international level in the same period.” The rise over that period “in no way reflects an overheating of the property market,” the bank said. “It is explained, in our view, by a catch-up effect.”
CUT MORE BAD DEBT
Strong lending growth that has underpinned real estate projects in recent years continued in January, with mortgage lending still up 13 percent compared to a year earlier, according to central bank figures. More Moroccans have been encouraged to open bank accounts and borrow as the banking network grew to reach more of the 34 million population.
Banks have been able to lend at lower rates and remain profitable because their bad debts have tumbled to around 5.5 percent, from a high of 19 percent in 2004 that was a hangover from risky lending in the 1990s. Moroccan banks should continue to “further lower their levels of bad debts and reinforce their equity base,” the central bank said.
Analysts have suggested that Moroccan banks are still too weak to finance some major projects in the local economy. Asked if more mergers were needed among Moroccan lenders, the central bank said the sector was “characterised by a relatively high concentration of actors, the top three banks controlling 66 percent of the market”.
“This concentration and consolidation of financial resources allowed the reinforcement of banks’ capacity to finance the economy and the emergence of important financial groups that adopted strategies to deploy on the continent and in Europe.”
Robert Shaw
Elite Morocco Properties
T: +44 (0) 208 529 3635
E: info@moroccoproperties.net
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