RABAT Morocco's second quarter gross domestic product (GDP) in constant prices fell 0.5 percent compared to the same period of 1999 due mainly to a sharp fall in agricultural output, an official state report said.
State-run Banque Centrale Populaire (BCP) said in a report received on Friday that the country's GDP in constant prices for the second quarter of this year stood at 32.74 billion ($2.94) dirhams from 32.91 billion dirhams a year earlier.
GDP in constant prices for the first quarter of this year stood at 33.1 billion dirhams. It said agriculture's GDP at end of the second quarter of this year fell 25.3 percent.
Morocco was hit over the last two years by a severe drought which this season slashed the cereals harvest by 50 percent to 1.82 million tons.
The sector represents around 20 percent of GDP and employs half of the country's 10-million workforce.
"But non-agricultural GDP rose 3.1 percent, a rate signalling a recovery, particularly in the building sector of which the value added recorded a seven percent rise compared to the same period of last year," the bank said.
Non-agricultural GDP rose 2.6 percent in the first quarter of this year.
At the end of the first half of this year, inflation was 1.2 percent and the budget deficit over GDP was down to 0.7 percent from 2.4 percent a year earlier.
($1= 11.120 Moroccan dirhams) (Reuter)