Morocco ranks 17th among the 20 most indebted countries to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
This is evident from a ranking by the financial analysis website Insider Monkey, which is based on data up to March 24.
The kingdom must repay the IMF $1.34 billion, while its gross domestic product (GDP) is more than $130 billion. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, Morocco is followed by Tunisia, which ranks 20th globally with an IMF debt of $1.14 billion.
Egypt is the second most indebted country in the world, owing more than $11 billion to the IMF. The country had a GDP of over $476 billion in 2022. Other African countries included in the rankings are South Africa, Senegal, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Kenya and Angola. Angola is Africa’s second most indebted country after Egypt, with a debt of $3 billion.
The only European country on the list is Ukraine, which ranks third with a debt of more than $8.4 billion. The country managed to repay more than $542 million this month. Argentina tops the list with a debt of $32 billion, even though its GDP is more than $631 billion.
Insider Monkey points out that most debtor countries are African, and that this is due to the continent’s declining economic growth, which has fallen from 4.1 percent in 2022 to 3.2 percent in 2023. The causes include economic shocks, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, geopolitical uncertainty in the Middle East and the tightening of monetary and financial policies in some countries.
