At first 2024 Monetary Policy Committee confab: BEAC Governor promises transparency, dynamism.

Sana Bangui said he will work in unity with collaborators to defend the interest of citizens of the six member countries of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community, CEMAC. 

He restated that issues around regulating the monetary policy, recruitment and respect of laws in force are not subject to any debate. Such, he said, will be done in respect of the highest standards possible to uphold the integrity of BEAC.  

Sana Bangui who is also Chairman of the BEAC Monetary Policy Committee said during Monday’s meeting, they focused on assessing the macroeconomic context from both a global and sub-regional perspective.

Internationally, he said economic activities are projected to experience stability amid measures from central banks to tighten borrowing and combat inflation. 

The same projection, he also said, is within a context of global tension not unconnected to geopolitics, the Russia-Ukraine war and the Isreal-Palestinain war in the Gaza strip.

He quoted forecast from the International Monetary Fund, IMF, in its World Economic Outlook, released in January this year as having observed that growth will be within the range of 3.1 percent in 2024 and 2025 as it was in 2023. 

Sana Bangui told pressmen that based on the same report, inflation across the world will drop from 6.8% in 2023 to 5.8 % in 2024 and 4.4% in 2025. He also said there will be a decline in international commodity prices.

Non-oil revenue to drive growth at 3.6 percent

At the level of CEMAC, the BEAC Governor announced a growth rate  of 3.6 percent in 2024. While noting that this will be a historic feat in the last fifteen years for the sub region, Sana Bangui indicated that, such growth will be driven by non-oil revenue.

Beyond this, he said the projections are also in a context of resilience of non-oil activities that will hit 4.1 % this year unlike in 2023 when it was at 3.1%. 

Besides inflation that he puts at 5.5% for this year, the BEAC boss also talked of a context of diminishing public finances with budget balances excluding grants going from 0.0% of Gross Domestic Product, GDP, to -0.2% in 2024.

On other monetary details related to public financing, public finance indicators, with the budget balance, excluding grants falling, Sana Bangui, said there will be a reduction in the current account surplus from 3.5% of GDP in 2023 to 1.5% of GDP in 2024. 

He also announced that, there will be an increase in the money supply of 12.6% compared to 9.1% in 2023.

Foreign exchange reserves, he said, will within CEMAC, record a slight drop of 2.7 % at the end of 2024. He said the figure will correspond to an external currency coverage rate of 74.29%, corresponding to the import of good and services of 4.3 compared to 4.8 last year.

Monetary rates maintained

The Committee resolved to maintain different monetary rates in place. Among them are: the Tender Interest Rate which has been maintained at 5,000 percent; Marginal Lending Rate at 6,75 percent. This is the minimum below which a bank is not permitted to lend money.

It also maintained the Deposit Rate at zero percent interest. The Deposit Rate is the interest financial institutions pay on cash deposit of account holders. 

The Compulsory Reserve Coefficients of 7.00% on sight liabilities and 4.50% on Term Liabilities was also maintained. This is the percentage of a bank’s deposit that must be kept as reserve.