dit Du Maroc's Ratings Affirmed

CREDIT DU MAROC’S RATINGS AFFIRMEDCapital Intelligence (CI), the international credit rating agency, today announced that it has affirmedthe Foreign Currency ratings of Morocco’s Crédit du Maroc at BBB- (Long-term) and A3 (Short-term),which are at the sovereign ceiling for Morocco, and the Financial Strength rating at BBB-. The Supportrating was maintained at 2. The Outlook for all ratings is Stable.Crédit du Maroc (CM) was established in 1963, when the 34-year-old branch of France’s CréditLyonnais (CL) was incorporated as Crédit Lyonnais Maroc, adopting its present style in 1966. TheBank was founded as a joint venture wherein local investors, including the then state-owned BMCE,held a minority interest. Current ownership consists principally of France’s Crédit Agricole SA. WafaAssurance, one of the largest Moroccan insurance companies and owned by Attijariwafa Bank (AWB),holds a minority stake. In late 2008, Crédit Agricole SA signed an agreement with Morocco'sAttijariwafa Bank to sell its stakes in some African operations to Attijariwafa. The transaction includedselling assets in Congo, Cameroon, Gabon, Senegal and some other countries for an amount ofEUR250mn. In turn, Crédit Agricole purchased another 24% of Crédit du Maroc, held by WafaAssurance, to raise its share in CM to 77%.CM maintains a sound overall financial position. The Bank has an adequate liquidity and fundingprofile; funding is nearly all sourced from domestic retail customer deposits and the base of liquidassets is reasonable. The expansion of deposits, particularly low-cost deposits, has been difficult overthe past year or so and this created some pressure on the Bank’s margins. Despite this, profitability toend-June 2009 was good, aided by increased interest income from rising asset volumes and animproved operating cost base. On the negative side, non-performing loans rose swiftly in H1 2009, thefirst increase in bad loans for some time, as CM’s loan portfolio came under some pressure due to themore challenging operating environment. Despite this, the Bank’s overall level of NPLs is reasonableand adequate provisioning coverage is maintained. In 2008, the Bank’s capital base was boosted by asubordinated debt issue which raised the capital adequacy ratio to a more reasonable level.CM receives management and operational support from its French parent, Crédit Agricole, which aidsthe Bank’s activities. With assets of MAD40,233mn (USD4,967mn) at end-June 2009, CM is thesmallest in a field of six main Moroccan banks, with a market share of about 6.5%. CM has typicallyconcentrated on lending to individuals and large companies. However, it is expanding its retail bankingactivities. The Bank operates a network of over 260 branches in Morocco, two branches and onerepresentative office in France, and three representative offices in the Netherlands and Italy.Contact:Darren Stubing darren.stubing@ciratings.com [1] Tel: 357 25 342300Tom Kenzik tom.kenzik@ciratings.com [2]