Who is right and who is wrong? In fact, with the growing uncertainties, the unpredictable tends to outweigh the predictable. In forecasting, there is neither optimism nor pessimism.

The Centre Marocain de Conjuncture (CMC) has revised downward the country's growth rate initially set at 3.2%. The year 2010 has experienced unexpected changes resulting from the interaction of several factors. First, the European crisis: sudden and brutal, leading to severe austerity policies. And it has affected Morocco's two main partners, France and Spain.

The effects on tourism, trade, investment and MREs' transfers cannot be excluded. In October 2008, the CMC had drawn attention to the scale of the global crisis impact – to be felt later. It estimated that the shortfall for the national economy would be between 1.5 and 2 percentage points of growth.

Secondly, we cannot ignore the damage caused by the difficult weather of the beginning of the year, which resulted in direct capital and output losses in different sectors of activity. These losses were estimated at 0.7% of GDP.

Thirdly, the farming season was worse than the previous year: 70 to 80 million quintals against more than 100 million quintals. Besides, the direct impact of agricultural output fluctuations for domestic consumption and employment remains decisive. Despite efforts to diversify non-agricultural economic activities, growth remains dependent on the whims of the sky.

In a troubled global and regional context marked by near term solutions, the rate of 2.8% is not at all a bad performance. It suggests a certain resilience of the economy. But beyond that, the recurring question remains the ability to reduce the wide variations in growth rates from one year to another.

The 2011 finance act must not pick up the wrong priorities. It must respond to this major concern by targeting growth. In this respect, two paths should be followed: to continue the large-scale projects through increasing the level and quality of public investment on the one hand, and avoid further weakening the middle classes which have become the soft underbelly of society.

We hope that 2011 will be the year of recovery with 4.5% growth - after the cyclical trough of 2010.