(MENAFN- Morocco World News) The energy bill decreased by 29.9% at the end of July 2016, reaching 29.42 billion dirhams, against 41.95 billion dirhams one year before, according to the Exchange Control Office.
The share of energy costs in total imports decreased by 6.3 points, that is 12.5% during the first seven months of 2016, instead of 18.8% at end of July 2015, noted the Office in the monthly indicators of foreign trade in July 2016. This decrease is mainly due to the decline of petroleum crude oil supplies (-100%), and of oil imports of gas and other hydrocarbons (-2.9%), the same source noted. Despite the drop in energy products, imports increased by 4.9% (234.58 billion dirhams against 223.67 billion dirhams at the end of July 2015), the Office said, adding that this increase is attributable to increased purchases of capital goods equipment (+21.8%), finished consumer products (+15.3%), food products (+15.5%) and semi-finished products (+7.2%). During the first seven months of 2016, Morocco's trade balance deteriorated by more than 9 billion dirhams, that is an increase in the deficit of 16.7% compared to the same period of last year, the same source added. With MAP data-ad-client="ca-pub-9546318280945074" data-ad-slot="9241175969"> jQuery.ajax({ url: "http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/", data: { top_ten_id: 196095, top_ten_blog_id: 1, activate_counter: 11, top10_rnd: (new Date()).getTime() + "-" + Math.floor(Math.random() * 100000) } });