Cooperation among ECOWAS members vital to launching common currency: official
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E-mail Xinhua, September 12, 2023
ACCRA, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- A senior official from the West African Monetary Institute (WAMI) on Monday stressed a strong collaboration among member states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to achieve the target of launching the proposed common currency Eco for the subregion amid the global economic challenges.
Olorunsola Olowofeso, director general of the WAMI, made this call during the official opening of the 53rd Meeting of the Technical Committee of the Member States of the West African Monetary Zone in Accra, the capital of Ghana.
In an interview with Xinhua, Olowofeso said the governments and the central banks of ECOWAS member states have been working hard to hold the economies together and sustain the drive toward achieving the common currency on schedule.
To sustain this drive, the official emphasized that there is a need for an all-hands-on-deck approach.
"We need to talk to all stakeholders and work together to synchronize our institutions and regulations to drive this process. One institution can not drive it alone. All hands must be on deck to achieve this. So we need to strengthen our relationships by bringing all the stakeholders together to inform them of the challenges and see how to solve them," he told Xinhua.
He conceded that the ongoing global challenges constituted a major challenge to achieving the primary and secondary convergence criteria for introducing the common currency.
"But the challenges are not insurmountable and must not stop ECOWAS from going forward with the agenda," the director general said. "For fiscal integration in terms of payment systems, we have gone far. We have also gone far with the domestic debt, capital market integration, and the unique bank identification."
He said the WAMI has received support from the African Development Bank to help the remaining countries to bring these programs on stream.
"With cooperation among the member states, the regional institutions, the West African Monetary Agency, and the WAMI, which are driving this process, we can achieve the targets," Olowofeso concluded.
The leaders of ECOWAS adopted a new road map in 2021 toward the launch of the Eco by 2027, requiring all member states to meet all the primary convergence criteria requirements sustainably by the end of 2026. Enditem
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