Assessment of the degree of impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on trade relations Morocco – Italy

The world economy is witnessing an unprecedented shock that has caused an upheaval in an entire economic system. Under the name Covid-19, the pandemic has weighed down global growth and in this case the maintenance of macroeconomic balance is and will be necessary in this unexpected situation. It is in this sense that we will try, through this article, to highlight the impact of the pandemic on the trade balance, a variable that has been hit hard by this shock. To do this, a forecasting study has been recommend in order to anticipate the trend of exports and imports of Morocco, particularly with Italy. In order to carry out our study, we will use the real effective exchange rate as an instrument to forecast the two variables, exports and imports. This work has highlighted two distinct phases in the forecasting of the trend of the two variables mentioned above: in a crisis situation (Covid-19) and in the absence of crisis. The forecasts of the evolution of these two variables will be designed by causality tests in the sense of Granger. However, in case of absence of impact, we will resort to other methods leading to the desired forecasts: Box and Jenkins' method, (ARMA model) and/or other alternative methods that may allow us to make forecasts for exports/imports from Morocco concerning the country in question