Morocco Property Investment News

Morocco scores highly in 2007’s economic freedom index

Morocco's economy is deemed to be “very free” for the Middle East, according to results from the 2007 Index of Economic Freedom. The influential index is created by The Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation, Washington’s preeminent think tank, and measures and ranks 161 countries across 10 freedoms, including tax rates and property rights.

Morocco has surprised some analysts by scoring highly in several of the 10 factors of economic freedom: business freedom, monetary freedom, freedom from government and investment freedom. Morocco's economy is 57.4% free, according to the assessment, which makes it the world's 96th freest economy. Its overall score is 4.4 percentage points higher than last year. Morocco ranks 11th out of 17 countries in the Middle East/North Africa region, and its overall score is slightly higher than the regional average.

Hong Kong came first in the index at 89.3% economically free, with Singapore coming second and Australia third. According to the index, Morocco ranks higher in economic freedom than Croatia, the Dominican Republic, India and the Philippines, and is around the same level as Greece and Argentina in terms of economic freedom.

The index, which has been published annually for 10 years, may be of interest to those considering an investment property in Morocco given that it indicates how healthy a country’s economy is overall. The Wall Street Journal explains, “Not only is a higher level of economic freedom clearly associated with a higher level of per capita gross domestic product (GDP), but GDP growth rates also increase as a country’s economic freedom score improves.”