RABAT, April 3 (Xinhua) -- Morocco's trade deficit increased by 10.6 percent to over 3 billion U.S. dollars by the end of February, the foreign exchange regulator said on Wednesday.

According to the statistics, the rise in the deficit came despite a decline of 2.4 percent year-on-year in imports and an increase of 3.5 percent in exports, as the value of imports remained far more than exports.

Last month, the imports hit 7.9 billion dollars, while exports only hiked to nearly 4.9 billion dollars.

Imports of equipment and energy products decreased by 11.3 and 8.7 percent respectively, while raw materials and wheat imports hiked by 5.1 and 4.2 percent respectively.

The increase in exports was largely due to a rise of 13.7 percent in phosphate, 2.7 percent in agriculture products and 1.9 percent in car industry products.