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The Moroccan Economy in Brief: Saturday, January 23, 2021

The main tax measures of the Finance Act 2021:
The Directorate General of Taxes (DGI) has issued a circular note on the tax provisions of Finance Act No. 65-20 for fiscal year 2021. The tax measures introduced by the Finance Act (LF) No. 65-20 for fiscal year 2021 aim, among other things, to maintain the effort to temporarily reduce the burden of certain taxes and duties in order to promote the recovery of certain sectors in difficulty, says the DGI.

Inflation increases by 0.7% in 2020 in Morocco:
The average annual consumer price index (CPI) recorded, at the end of the past year, an increase of 0.7% compared to 2019, according to the High Commission for Planning (HCP). This increase is the result of the increase in the index of food products by 0.9% and that of non-food products by 0.5%, says the HCP in an information note on the CPI. The changes recorded for non-food products range from a decline of 1.6% for "Transport" to an increase of 2.7% for "Education," the same source said.

UCITS: Increase in net assets under management:
The net assets under management of Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) stood at MAD 523.19 billion at the end of 2020, up 11.18% compared to the previous year, according to the Association of Moroccan Management Companies and Investment Funds (ASFIM). Net inflows during the past year reached more than 40 MMDH, dominated by OMLT and Monetary UCITS, amounting respectively to MAD 18.17 billion and MAD 11.42 billion, said ASFIM, which has just published its monthly newsletter for December 2020. The OMLT mutual funds ended the year 2020 with the strongest performance (4.06%), followed by the OCT mutual funds (+2.89%), the Money Market mutual funds (+2.11) and the diversified mutual funds (+1.01%). Conversely, equity mutual funds posted the lowest performance with -4.42%. Month-on-month, net assets under management grew by 4.5% compared with end-November 2020.

Vehicles acquired abroad: The DGI launches online payment:
The French General Tax Department (DGI) has enriched the SIMPL teleservices package with a new functionality allowing online payment of registration fees for vehicles acquired abroad. This functionality, accessible via the DGI's Internet portal "www.tax.gov.ma," complements the module in service relating to the payment of fees for vehicle transactions, according to a press release from the Directorate, which is pursuing its strategy of digitizing and improving the services offered to taxpayers.

Orange Maroc finalizes the acquisition of Etix Everywhere Maroc:
Orange Maroc continues its development strategy in the ICT field by finalizing the acquisition of Etix Everywhere Maroc and equips itself with a neutral datacenter to international standards, certified Tier III "Design" and "Constructed Facility" by the Uptime Institute. As the only data center in Casablanca to benefit from Tier III "Constructed Facility" certification, Etix Everywhere Maroc's data center meets the best industry standards, notably thanks to an industrialized technical solution deployed on all the infrastructures operated internationally by Etix Everywhere. The first phase of the datacenter benefits from 100% service continuity since its commissioning in May 2015. Eventually, the datacenter will offer more than 1,000 kW of hosting capacity via 3 independent technical modules.