The economy of the sub-regional monetary bloc is gradually recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic.
By Edouard Toure
The growth rate of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) has returned to its pre-Covid-19 level.
According to its Multilateral Surveillance Implementation Report for the first half of 2022 reviewed by the Council of Ministers of member states, growth is 6.1 percent in 2021, compared to 1.8 percent a year earlier.
“The Council noted that economic activity took place in a context of rising inflation with an average annual inflation rate of 3.6 percent, against 2.1 percent in 2020, particularly in relation to the increase in food prices following the poor cereal season recorded in 2021,” reports the final communiqué of the UEMOA Council of Ministers sent to APA on Wednesday.
The meeting was held on 24 June at the headquarters of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), in Dakar, Senegal, under the chairmanship of Sani Yaya, Minister of Economy and Finance of Togo, its current chairman.
During the meeting, the Council noted that the outlook remains fragile, however, due to the uncertainty over the duration of the crisis in Ukraine and its impact on the rise in prices of certain basic commodities and raw materials, the persistence of the security crisis in the Sahel and its extension to coastal areas, as well as the health crisis.
Among the recommendations adopted by the UEMOA Ministers of Economy, there is one relating to economic policy guidelines for the member states of the Union for the year 2023.
In this recommendation, the Council invites members to continue to strengthen measures aimed at limiting the impact of price increases and preserving the purchasing power of the population, especially the most vulnerable, while continuing efforts to control the budget deficit.
The Council of Ministers adopted the decision defining and determining the tax revenue aggregate and the decision defining and determining the content of the wage bill in UEMOA members.
The first text should make it possible to determine a common methodology for calculating this aggregate and the second is supposed to create a common approach specifying the components of the wage bill aggregate.
All of this is to ensure that the convergence criteria are met within the framework of multilateral surveillance of macroeconomic policies in the community.
Abdoulaye Diop, President of the UEMOA Commission, Mamadou Diop, Vice-Governor, in charge of the interim Governor of ECOWAS, Serge Ekue, President of the West African Development Bank (BOAD) and Badanam Patoki, President of the Regional Council for Public Savings and Financial Markets (CREPMF) attended the meeting in the Senegalese capital.
TE/id/fss/as/APA