Le Matin reported last month that Agriculture Minister Mohand Laenser claimed that more than a quarter of the country's 30 million people make their living from grain cultivation. The purchasing power of this number - nearly a quarter of the population - has been boosted by a record grain crop this year. With more money in their hands, new local investors are entering the market.
``Morocco is still quite dependent on agriculture,'' said Ashraf El Ansary, who helps oversee $5.5 billion at JP Morgan Fleming Asset Management in London and holds Moroccan shares. ``A good harvest this year will help the stock market grow.''
The Morocco Casablanca New All Share Stock Exchange Index is the seventh best performer this year out of 80 gauges tracked worldwide by Bloomberg News, with a gain of 41 percent in dollar terms. It's outperformed all other Arab markets and the Morgan Stanley Capital International Emerging Markets Index, a measure of developing nations that's up 6.6 percent.
Morocco's production of soft wheat, durum wheat and barley may double to 8.6 million metric tons this year, more than twice that of the previous year, according to the web site of Morocco's main grain buyer, the Rabat-based National Office of the Cereal and Vegetable Industry.
Read the full Bloomberg story HERE.Tags: Morocco Fes, Maghreb news
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