Informal economy: Lekjaâ’s recipe for success
Fouzi Lekjaâ, Minister Delegate in charge of the Budget, is keen to involve MPs in his reform projects from the outset. This is what he intends to do to encourage those in the informal sector to go formal. In fact, the aim is to carry out a precise assessment of what has been done in this field, particularly with regard to the auto-entrepreneur and Single Professional Contribution (CPU) schemes. For Fouzi Lekjaâ, this assessment must be carried out collectively, by the Government and the Parliament. At least, that’s what emerged from his speech to the House of Councillors on Tuesday June 17, 2025. It also involves implementing a series of measures to make them two essential levers for transforming the informal sector. Indeed, his ministry’s departments are currently putting the finishing touches to the revision of these two schemes. The aim is to submit proposals in this direction in mid-July, when the 2025 Finance Act for the first six months of the year is presented. This will provide an opportunity for parliamentarians from the Finance Committees of both chambers to discuss these proposals, so that they can be incorporated into the Finance Bill for 2026. According to the Minister in charge of the Budget, the aim will be to improve the existing system.
Another important element is to optimize the support provided by the Investment Charter decree for SMEs. This piece of legislation, if properly applied, will enable the informal sector to move towards an effectively entrepreneurial restructuring. In any case, the Minister took the opportunity to respond to certain data in the latest High Commissioner’s Office for Planning (HCP) study on the informal sector for the 2023-2024 period, notably on the existence of 2.03 million informal production units with total sales estimated at 527 billion Dirhams (USD 52 billion). In this respect, he made a point of clarifying the facts. At first glance, these figures may give the impression that the scale of this phenomenon is vast and worrying. However, a careful and thorough reading of the data, particularly from a tax point of view, leads to a more balanced assessment.
According to the figures from this study, over 85.5% of these units are classified as micro-units, often of an individual nature, operating in low value-added sectors. As a result, their capacity to contribute to the tax effort remains very limited. Based on a profit margin of around 15%, the average income of these units would not exceed the income tax exemption threshold, set at 40,000 dirhams (USD 4,000), making the fiscal impact of this category negligible, while indicating that the units covered by the study the units covered by the study mainly provide a source of subsistence.
Mohamed CHAOUI
