Plans for 2005 launch of new regional currency confirmed

Six countries in West Africa said on Friday they were still determined to launch a common currency on 1 July 2005 despite slow progress towards achieving this goal. It has already been delayed by two years. Guinean president Lansana Conte, who took over as the new chairman of the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ), said after a summit meeting of the organisation in Conakry that much remained to be done before the new currency, the Eco, could be launched in 10 months time. But he and several other speakers at the meeting stressed their determination not to miss next year's deadline following the organisation's failure to launch a single currency by the initial target date of 2003. "If this venture fails again, then we have failed our citizens," said Gambian President Yayah Jammeh The WAMZ is dominated by Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer and most populous country, with an estimated 126 million people. Its other members are Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Gambia and Guinea. The organisation is dominated by English-speaking countries. Guinea is the only Francophone member of the grouping. Along with Mauritania, it opted out of the CFA franc currency shared by all other former French colonies in West and Central Africa. The WAMZ was formed in 2000 to try and establish a strong stable currency to rival the CFA franc, whose exchange rate is tied to that of the euro and is guaranteed by the Bank of France. The eventual goal is for the CFA franc and Eco to merge, giving all of West and Central Africa a single stable currency. However, the final communique of Friday's summit, attended by the presidents of Guinea, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Gambia, noted that several member states had not paid their dues to WAMZ and that only two had put protocols for reducing tariff barriers within the future monetary zone onto their statute books. The launch of the new currency is being prepared by the West African Monetary Institute based in Accra, Ghana. This is intended to be the forerunner of a common central bank. However, several of the WAMZ's countries suffer from weak currencies and chronic budget deficits which are currently plugged by their central banks printing more and more notes of decreasing real value. Guinea, for instance has seen the official rate of exchange of the Guinean franc slide by 25 percent against the US dollar over the past year, while its value on the parallel market has slumped by 41 percent. President Jammeh of Gambia highlighted the paradox that the WAMZ' member states export large volumes of oil, gold, bauxite, diamonds and cocoa, but have weaker economies than their neighbours in the CFA zone, most of whom have much less in the way of natural resources. "We are the richest in the region in terms of natural resources, yet the poorest and the most troubled," he said.