The Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) hosted, Wednesday, March 13, the first regular meeting of the office of the Association of Central African Banks (ABCA) for the year 2019.
Thus, experts, bankers, members of the African Union Commission (AUC), the Monetary Cooperation Program in Africa (PCMA) … have looked into the creation of the African Central Bank (BCA) and the single currency.
In the same vein, the African Union Commission (AUC) has proposed flagship recommendations to speed up the process of establishing the Common Bank and the single currency as soon as possible.
Among these, there are three, a study to determine the reasons for the slow ratification of the legal instruments of pan-African financial institutions.
The other is to encourage the AUC and AACB to work closely together to revise the timelines for the creation of the BCA. Both entities should refer to ABCA reports on the refinement of the CMAP convergence criteria. And finally, urge the ABCA to include GDP per capita as a secondary criterion in the macroeconomic convergence program.
It should be noted that the agenda of the meeting was to make an evaluation of the decisions taken by the Board of Governors of the ABCA at its 41st session, held on 9 August 2018 in Egypt. But also the review of the report on the implementation of the 2018 CMAP.
For ABCA President Tarek Amer, who is also Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt, the creation of a pan-African financial institution is essential to mobilize domestic funds.
And to add, “this will allow to assert the real productive transformations necessary for the development of the continent, in accordance with the objectives of the agenda 2063 of the African Union”.
In addition, the participants will release the ABCA 2019 roadmap following themes: “growing protectionist tendencies”; “Rising sovereign debt of Africa”; “Implications for monetary policy and financial stability”.
As a reminder, the main objective of the ABCA is to create a common Central Bank and a single currency to better deal with the monetary and financial issues of the continent.
Created on May 25, 1963, the institute currently has 40 member central banks, including the National Bank of Rwanda, the Bank of Algeria and, among others, the Central Bank of Tunisia and Nigeria.
