Rabat (IINA) : Bank Al-Maghrib’s net international reserves amounted to MAD 244.4 billion as of May 5 and this marks a 1.1 percent increase compared to a year earlier, stated the central bank in its latest weekly indicators.

According to the bank, these reserves grew by 0.1 percent from May 4-10, compared to the previous week. During this period, the total amount of BAM’s interventions amounted to MAD 21.5 billion. Of that amount, MAD 17 was injected in the form of 7-day advances on call for tenders, while MAD 4.5 billion was granted to the SMEs financing support program.

BAM indicators also showed that the interbank rate remained very close to the policy rate at 2.27 percent, while the exchange’s volume increased from MAD 4.4 billion to 4.9 billion.

On the stock market, the MASI Index fell by 0.6 percent, bringing its performance to 0.7 percent this year. The BAM noted that this weekly trend was mainly due to a 1.8 percent decrease in the banks’ sectoral index, 0.6 percent in the construction and building materials shares and a 1 percent decrease in the real estate industry shares, Morocco World News reported.

The AL-Maghrib note also showed a 2.2 percent increase in the oil and gas index, while transactions amounted to MAD 534.1 million in the period from May 4-10. MAD 476.3 million of this was realized in the central market.

As for the growth rate of M3, it slowed to 5.2 percent after hitting 5.4 percent in February. This mainly reflects a 10.1 percent decline in the forward deposit accounts and a slowdown in the growth of banks sight deposits of 7.5 percent.

Similarly, the rate of increase in holdings of economic agents in securities of money market UCITS fell to 7.9 percent, while the rate of sight deposits decreased to 4.7 percent. Fiduciary circulation, on the other hand, grew by 6.2 percent after registering a 5.6 percent increase in February.

BAM figures explain the decrease in M3 growth by the slowdown in the growth of net international reserves from 7.3 percent to 4.3 percent and net claims on the central government from 12.4 percent to 9.7 percent. On the other hand, the pace of bank credit growth showed a 4.5 percent increase, compared to 3.7 percent increase the previous month.