The Bank of Central African States (BEAC) notes a contraction of the economies of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) due to the health crisis linked to the Coronavirus which has led to a recession in activity.
The Monetary Policy Report (RPM) just published by the Bank of Central African States reports a difficult economic situation for the countries of the sub-region which are bearing the brunt of the Coronavirus pandemic. For these economies which rely mainly on oil, the depreciation of crude prices on the international market following the COVID-19 crisis caused the economy to contract during the year 2020.
Even if we note a clear improvement compared to previous projections which were based on the hypothesis of a prolonged and difficult to control health crisis, the sub-regional growth rate should stand at -2.9%, against 2.00%. 0% in 2019. By way of illustration, the economic growth of the CEMAC countries for the year 2020 was forecast at -6.9% in March, -5.9% in June and -3.1% in September.
“This favourable development reflects the rebound recorded from the third quarter of the year, demonstrating the resilience of the economies of the sub-region in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic”, BEAC indicates.
At the end of September 2020, foreign exchange reserves had consolidated to stand at CFAF 4,615.2 billion, against CFAF 4,080.7 billion a year earlier, an increase of 13.1%. The currency’s external coverage rate fell from 65.87% in September 2019 to 67.71% a year later. Regarding the CEMAC money market, the average monthly outstanding amount of transactions increased by 139.5 billion to 152.7 billion between October 2019 and October 2020 although this upward trend was disrupted by the health crisis.
Despite this difficult economic environment, the Central Bank projects in the medium term that the growth rate of real GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of CEMAC would increase to 2.8% in 2021, 3.2% in 2022 and 3.3% in 2023, after a contraction of 2.9% in 2020, mainly due to the performance of the non-oil sector
