Common currency launch postponed to 2005

The launch of a common currency for five of the 15 members of the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS) has been postponed from 1 January 2003 to 1 July 2005, a statement from ECOWAS said. The five - Ghana, The Gambia, Guinea, Nigeria and Sierra Leone - had agreed in 2000 to reform their economies to meet four fiscal targets prior to the introduction of the joint currency, which is to coexist with the CFA Franc for a specific period prior to the creation of a single currency for West Africa. The decision to postpone the launch, taken at a just concluded summit of the five in the Guinean capital, Conakry, stemmed from the inability of the countries to satisfy the targets. These are: reducing budget deficits to no more than four percent by 2002; limiting inflation to five percent by 2003; keeping Central Bank financing of budget deficits at under 10 percent of the previous year's revenue; and maintaining foreign reserves equivalent to at least six months' imports by 2003. The summit adopted an action plan aimed at enabling the states to achieve these goals ahead of the July 2005 launching date. It also extended the period for completion of the process preceding the establishment of a West African Central Bank, which has been rescheduled to between January 2003 and June 2005. Among other things, it agreed on the need to draw up country programmes defining the modalities for achieving the targets between 2003 and 2005, noting that the latter should be incorporated into the annual budget statements of the states and their economic programmes with multilateral institutions.