West African Monetary Zone

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The West African Monetary Zone is a group of 5 countries in ECOWAS that plan to introduce a common currency, the Eco by the year 2009. The 5 member states are Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. Liberia (also a member of ECOWAS), has expressed an interest in joining.

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, Sierra Leone, Gambia and Guinea, thus it 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 French Treasury.

The eventual goal is for the CFA franc and Eco to merge, giving all of West and Central Africa a single stable currency. 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.

[edit] External links

West-African Monetary Institute

African Union

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