MOROCCO SECURES BULK OF EXTRA AID SOUGHT
Morocco is likely to get an extra aid
package exceeding 100 mln Special Drawing Rights (126 mln dlrs)
in 1987 following a three-day Consultative Group meeting of
donors chaired by the World Bank, Moroccan Finance Minister
Mohamed Berada said.
    Berrada said most of the extra aid sought to complete high
priority investments in agriculture, education, and public
health had already been secured, and additional sums were
likely to emerge from forthcoming bilateral meetings with
donors.
    A World Bank statement said the Consultative Group meeting
attended by 15 donor countries and agencies noted with
satisfaction a marked improvement in Morocco's economic
performance and urged it to continue recent adjustment efforts.
    It added that the Group saw as realistic Morocco's
medium-term goal of restoring creditworthiness on financial
markets, and agreed to reconvene in a year to discuss Morocco's
five year development strategy for 1988-92, introduced in its
broad outlines at this week's meeting.
    Morocco reached an agreement here last week with the Paris
Club of western creditor governments to reschedule over 10
years the 900 mln dlrs of debt due by mid 1988. That followed
an agreement late last year to reschedule 1.8 billion dlrs of
commercial bank debt.
    Morocco's foreign debt currently totals 14 billion dlrs,
Berrada said, adding that Morocco intended to stop rescheduling
its debts, and pay them off instead.
    He told Reuters the forthcoming five-year development plan,
designed to avoid the negative effects of adjustment without
growth, could require further aid of 700 or 800 mln dlrs.
 REUTER
