{"id":13117,"date":"2025-10-21T06:42:53","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T04:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/morocco-targets-5-5-rise-in-2026-budget-expects-economic-growth-to-slow-modestly\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:26:12","slug":"morocco-targets-5-5-rise-in-2026-budget-expects-economic-growth-to-slow-modestly","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/morocco-targets-5-5-rise-in-2026-budget-expects-economic-growth-to-slow-modestly\/","title":{"rendered":"Morocco targets 5.5% rise in 2026 budget, expects economic growth to slow modestly"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Morocco&#8217;s finance ministry on Monday submitted to the country&#8217;s parliament a 2026 draft budget totalling 761.3 billion Dirhams ($83 billion), up 5.5% from a year ago.<\/div>\n<p>The government expects economic growth to slow to 4.6% next year from 4.8% in 2025, due in part to global market uncertainties and an anticipated average grain harvest in the North African country, according to the draft budget seen by\u00a0<i>Reuters<\/i>.<\/p>\n<div>The government said it would place priority on improving health and education and reducing inequalities between regions in its 2026 budget.<\/div>\n<div>Youth-led protests spread across the kingdom in recent weeks, revealing deep-seated anger over public services.<\/div>\n<div>Morocco&#8217;s government expects public investment to increase by 12% to 380 billion Dirhams ($103 471 billion) next year, driven by spending on infrastructure projects, including ports, airports and railways ahead of the 2030 FIFA World Cup, the document showed.<\/div>\n<div>The country&#8217;s fiscal deficit is expected to shrink to 3% of Gross Domestic Product in 2026 from 3.5% this year, as higher tax revenue continues to offset increased public investment spending, the document showed.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Financing needs are estimated at 48.744 billion Dirhams ($13 272 billion) in 2026, down 23.26% from 2025.<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13118,"template":"default||default","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-13117","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The government said it would place priority on improving health and education and reducing inequalities between regions in its 2026 budget.||The government said it would place priority on improving health and education and reducing inequalities between regions in its 2026 budget.","published_date":null,"news_description":"The government said it would place priority on improving health and education and reducing inequalities between regions in its 2026 budget.||The government said it would place priority on improving health and education and reducing inequalities between regions in its 2026 budget.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/13117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/13117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18389,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/13117\/revisions\/18389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=13117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}