Satellite Seminar on Financial Inclusion held in conjunction with the 61st World Statistics Congress  Opening remarks by Mr. Abdellatif JOUAHRI Governor of Bank Al-Maghrib Marrakech, July 14, 2017  1  “While data is important, the right data is essential” Albert Einstein  Honorable Chair of the Irving Fisher Committee, Honorable Governor of the BEAC, Distinguished guests, Ladies and gentlemen, It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to Morocco on the occasion of this international seminar on financial inclusion, which will focus on data and their important role in developing policies and strategies that take into account on-the-ground realities and then measuring and assessing the impact of these policies. First of all, I would like to thank our partners, the Irving Fisher Committee on Central Bank Statistics and the Center for Latin American Monetary Studies for their valuable contribution to the organization of this event, held as usual on the sidelines of the 61st World Statistics Congress. The topic of our meeting further underscores the importance that central banks and international standardization bodies attach to financial inclusion. It is a subject that is of increasing interest to them, particularly with regard to its interactions with financial stability, resulting in hindering the policies put in place to develop access to and use of financial services. A sustainable and efficient financial inclusion requires a long-lasting balance between innovation and the safeguards that need to be developed in order to ensure the soundness of the financial sector.

This commitment reflects our willingness and determination to continue our financial inclusion efforts, which have enabled Morocco to become a regional benchmark, given the significant progress it has achieved in this regard. Such efforts have been reported by the World Bank and the IMF during their last Financial Sector Assessment Mission (FSAP) conducted in 2015. Ladies and gentlemen, Aware of the importance of data for designing relevant policies, Bank AlMaghrib has taken specific measures to develop, in line with international standards, a set of indicators which address two fundamental dimensions of financial inclusion: access to and use of financial services. As for the “quality” dimension, it is monitored for the time being through the Banking Services Price Index, which we developed in 2011 and which accurately reflects the cost and trend of banking services. Moreover, considering the weight of very small, small and medium enterprises (VSMEs) in our industrial fabric and their role in employment and wealth creation, we mobilized various public and private actors to establish an observatory for VSMEs. Founded in 2016, this observatory aims at (1) centralizing national and regional data and information on VSMEs, and (2) generating demographic, economic and financial information on economic sectors in order to allow stakeholders to respond more effectively to the issue of financing this specific category of companies. We have also established two credit bureaus, the first in 2007 and the second in 2016, in order to provide credit institutions and similar bodies with a common platform for the exchange of data.