At what stage are we with Eco, the new currency of ECOWAS?
Eco is the name retained by leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on June 29. This to replace the FCFA.
The entry into the validity of this single currency project is planned for 2020.
A few days before the chosen year (2020), a question arises among many inhabitants of the countries belonging to ECOWAS.
Will Mali, Nigeria and all of West African countries really use this currency in order to trade?
Originally scheduled to be introduced in December 2009, it was postponed to January 2015, before being reported as stalled in 2014,
which was to result in a merger of two current currency areas.
The West African monetary area and the Economic Union. Replacing the CFA franc inherited from colonization for the ECO;
It has been the wish of West African leaders since 1983.
Eight member countries of the Economic and Monetary Union of West Africa UEMOA have already accepted this currency at the expense
of the FCFA and the other seven have a national currency.
This Monetary Union project will promote economic and social integration in the area.
The question now remains as to, which countries will be eligible to have access to this currency?
And what are the flexibility rates of this new currency?
In response to this question, Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara at a conference in Abuja “Only countries that are ready and that have
made significant efforts in good management, good governance, control of deficits, control of debt will be able to ‘trade using the new
ECO currency’.
The aim of this currency is to guarantee the stability of the future financial zone, to banish inflation, the deficit, and the public debt, to create
a central bank that will, among other things, have to regulate the exchange rate.
So will the ECO be flexible and backed by a basket of currencies?
Let’s wait and see…
By Subiru Madina
We are waiting to see