Morocco may sell Islamic bonds in 2025 after a seven-year hiatus, the central bank governor said, amid an investment drive for the men's football World Cup in 2030.
The government is “studying” a new sukuk before the end of this year, Governor Abdellatif Jouahri said to Bloomberg on the sidelines of an Islamic finance conference in Rabat on Thursday. He did not say whether the issuance would be in a foreign or the local currency.
Morocco last sold Islamic debt in 2018, though its issued conventional bonds, including in dollars and euros, more recently. In April of this year, Morocco sold €2 billion ($2.4 billion) of four- and 10-year bonds. The latter trade with a yield of around 4.7%.
Jouahri said the absence of Moroccan sovereign Islamic debt was problematic and noted that the last sukuk matured in 2023. The country is trying to build its Islamic finance industry.
The predominantly-Muslim nation launched what it dubs as “participative finance” in 2017. “We are the young boy of Islamic Finance and we have come a long way since 2017,” Jouahri said.
The sector's growth has been stymied by a lack of liquidity and lengthy licensing procedures for new products. Until now, no corporate sukuk has been issued locally.
“We are not satisfied by the numbers,” Jouahri said, pointing to 2% total banking assets being held by local participative financial firms. Morocco has laid the “infrastructure” for Islamic finance and authorities are identifying obstacles to its growth to boost its use role in projects, including those for the green-energy transition, he said.
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