The World Bank granted Morocco a loan of US$250M to boost Morocco’s agriculture strategy Green Generation, official news agency MAP reported Wednesday.
The loan is part of a joint financing operation with the French Development Agency, MAP said.
The Green Generation aims at bringing the youth into farming and will finance entrepreneurship and training programs targeting rural young people including women, it added.
Agriculture is the main provider of jobs in Morocco, where nearly 38 percent of the population and 79.4 percent of the poor population is rural, according to MAP.
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Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Morocco’s economy is expected to contract by 6.6 percent in 2020, the worst performance since 1996, according to the central bank of the North African country.
Meanwhile, Morocco’s government debt is expected to rise to 76 percent of GDP by the end of 2020 from 65 percent in 2019, while the deficit is expected to widen to 7.8 percent of GDP from 4.1 percent last year.
Source: Xinhuanet