Foreign Exchange Reserves: The Moroccan Chart Switches Calculation Series in 2020 — and on Its Own Source, Morocco Never Overtakes Algeria

Anne Vanderlinden — Bruxelles, Belgique — 2026-09-11

Method note. We downloaded ourselves the World Bank series that the chart cites as its source, and compared them year by year with what it displays. We give the exact series codes, so that anyone can redo the check. And at the end we concede what must be conceded.

📊 What the chart says (Moroccan perfidy)

A chart is circulating, titled "Foreign exchange reserves: Morocco vs Algeria, 2013 to 2026." It announces "two opposite trajectories, a gap that has narrowed sharply," and concludes: in 2026, Morocco is ahead of Algeria in foreign exchange reserves.

🔎 The reality, through the evidence taken from their own source

Its declared source: World Bank, World Development Indicators, series FI.RES.TOTL.CD — "total reserves, including gold" — supplemented by IMF projections for Algeria in 2026.

⚠️ The main flaw: the chart switches calculation series in 2020

Here is the result of our year-by-year check between what the chart displays and the two series actually published by the World Bank — reserves including gold (FI.RES.TOTL.CD) and reserves excluding gold (FI.RES.XGLD.CD):

Read that table carefully, because it is damning. From 2014 to 2019, the chart faithfully follows the "including gold" series — the one it cites as its source. Then, from 2020 on, it switches to the "excluding gold" series, without saying so.

The result is an artificial break. Algeria's monetary gold represents about 15 billion dollars. By switching series in the middle of the curve, the second half of the chart is amputated of those 15 billion — and a decline is turned into a collapse.

On the series the chart claims to use — "including gold" — here is what the World Bank actually says:

The announced crossover never happened. On the source cited by the chart itself, Algeria retains more than double Morocco's reserves in 2023 and in 2024, and one and a half times in 2025. Morocco never moved ahead.

⚠️ Second flaw: the starting date is picked at the peak

2013 is not a neutral year: it is the historic high point of Algerian reserves. The "including gold" series gives $200.6 billion in 2012 and $201.4 billion in 2013 — the absolute maximum ever reached.

Starting from the peak is a guarantee of a spectacular fall. The same chart started in 2020 — when Algeria stood at $59.4 billion — would show an Algerian curve up 40% in five years. The choice of the starting date makes the entire narrative.

⚠️ Third flaw: reserves without the debt mean nothing

This is the most serious omission, and it is decisive. A reserve is money you own. It has to be read together with what you owe. Here are the two columns side by side, World Bank data, year 2024:

Look at the third line. Algeria owns 76 billion dollars more than it owes. Morocco owes 31 billion dollars more than it owns.

Morocco's reserves are borrowed. Morocco has accumulated 68 billion dollars of external debt to display 37 billion in reserves. That is not savings: that is an overdraft.

And the fourth line completes the demonstration. Algeria's reserves cover 16.5 months of imports, against 5.3 months for Morocco — three times more. Algeria imports far less, because it produces its own energy, much of its food and its steel; Morocco imports its oil, its gas and its wheat. A thinner cushion with heavier bills is not a lead: it is a fragility.

This chart is ours, and here is how to read it. It does not show what you own: it shows what is left once the debts are paid. The green bar climbs, the red bar falls. No commentary is needed.

⚠️ Fourth flaw: a forecast presented as a fact

$49.7 billion for Algeria in 2026 is an International Monetary Fund projection. $53.6 billion for Morocco is a figure recorded as of September 4, 2026 by the Moroccan central bank.

Comparing a forecast with a reality is not comparing. And a forecast is revisable: it depends on the price of oil, of gas, on the exchange rate. Yet the chart presents the 2026 crossover as an accomplished fact — when it is comparing an estimate with a measurement.

✅ Two checks that go our way

Per capita, on the chart's own figures. Algeria has 46.8 million inhabitants, Morocco 38.1 million. With 68 billion for one and 37 billion for the other: $1,453 per Algerian against $971 per Moroccan. Algeria is ahead.

Debts deducted, per capita: Algeria +$1,306. Morocco −$813. Morocco is negative.

⚖️ What we concede, because it is true

Algerian reserves really have fallen. From more than 200 billion dollars in 2013 to less than 85 today on the full series — that is a real vulnerability, and it comes from dependence on hydrocarbons. When oil falls, reserves fall. The chart does not lie on that point, and we will not deny it.

But what it omits is decisive: why those reserves melted away. Algeria chose to spend them during the 2014-2020 price slump rather than to borrow: subsidies, public wages, social transfers, free health care, pensions, infrastructure projects — and not a single call on international markets.

Morocco made the opposite choice. It borrowed. Its reserves rose, its external debt rose twice as fast.

Two countries went through the same storm. One drew on its savings. The other signed IOUs. Comparing one without the other is not economics: it is one-way bookkeeping.

🎯 The conclusion, in three sentences

The chart switches calculation series in 2020 without saying so, and that switch costs it fifteen billion dollars along the way.

On the source it cites itself — reserves including gold — Algeria is never overtaken: 83 billion against 37 in 2024.

And once the debts are deducted, Algeria is positive by 76 billion while Morocco is negative by 31. You do not compare a savings account with an overdraft.

🔗 The sources, directly accessible — click and check for yourself

• Total reserves, including gold — World Bank, series FI.RES.TOTL.CD: https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/DZ;MA/indicator/FI.RES.TOTL.CD?format=json&per_page=100&date=2010:2025
• Reserves excluding gold — World Bank, series FI.RES.XGLD.CD (the one the chart follows from 2020 on without saying so): https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/DZ;MA/indicator/FI.RES.XGLD.CD?format=json&per_page=100&date=2010:2025
• Total external debt — World Bank, series DT.DOD.DECT.CD: https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/DZ;MA/indicator/DT.DOD.DECT.CD?format=json&per_page=100&date=2010:2024
• Import cover, in months — World Bank, series FI.RES.TOTL.MO: https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/DZ;MA/indicator/FI.RES.TOTL.MO?format=json&per_page=100&date=2010:2025

These four links open the raw data directly, in readable format. They are enough to redo this entire article, figure by figure.

Final method note. The amounts are in current United States dollars, as published, with no rounding other than display. World Bank series may be revised: the values cited are those published on the date of this article. Where the chart we are examining uses an IMF projection, we flag it as such — and we present no forecast as a fact.