Over 40,000 businesses declare bankruptcy in Morocco
RABAT – The Moroccan Confederation of SMEs (CMTPME) announced on Sunday that more than 40,000 businesses in Morocco declared bankruptcy in 2024, as the unemployment rate rose from 16.2% in 2014 to 21.3% in 2024, marking a record high not seen in the past decade.
CMTPME president Abdellah El Fergui, quoted by local media, warned that the number of business dissolutions “could sharply increase unless urgent measures are taken to assist the hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) burdened with debts from the COVID-19 pandemic.”
He also challenged the data provided by the Moroccan Observatory of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises, claiming that the Observatory’s statistics were inaccurate, as they only counted businesses with legal status. CMTPME emphasised that the Observatory overlooked very small businesses run by individuals.
These figures emerge against the backdrop of a historic rise in unemployment in Morocco. According to the 2024 General Population and Housing Census, the unemployment rate in Morocco increased to 21.3% in 2024, a level not seen in the last ten years.
