Business | Banking
Morocco 'not exposed to financial crisis'
Morocco's banks are not exposed to the US financial crisis but the economy could be affected by the global econ-omic slowdown triggered by overseas financial turmoil, Morocco's central bank chief said on Thursday.
- Agencies
- Published: 23:35 September 25, 2008
Rabat : Morocco's banks are not exposed to the US financial crisis but the economy could be affected by the global econ-omic slowdown triggered by overseas financial turmoil, Morocco's central bank chief said on Thursday.
"Our investigations showed that roughly Morocco's financial system has no assets with banks in difficulties abroad," Abdellatif Jouahri said.
"Total assets of Moroccan banks abroad are around 31 billion Moroccan dirhams ($4.02 billion), which account for around four per cent of their whole assets. That is to say that is not big," he said.
"A priori, there is no risk for Moroccan banks," he added.
Turning to the central bank, officially known as Bank Al Maghrib, which manages the country's foreign currency reserves, Jouahri said:
"Bank Al Maghrib has no position that might cause difficulty to any asset of the currency reserves."
Jouahri appeared to rule out any impact from the global financial crisis in Casablanca bourse losses on September 15-16, estimated by analysts at 50 billion dirhams.
"No hedge funds or real estate funds own shares in the Casablanca bourse and no sell-off of stocks in Casablanca by any foreigners to cover difficult positions abroad took place," he said.
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