Revamped West African currency to be launched in 2020

PARIS - A new version of a common currency in West Africa will be launched in 2020, French President Emmanuel Macron said.

The changes to the currency, to be renamed as the ECO in place of the CFA Franc, were announced by Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara at a joint news conference with Macron in Abidjan on Saturday.

West Africa’s monetary union has agreed with France to rename its CFA franc the Eco and cut some of the financial links with Paris that have underpinned the region’s common currency since its creation soon World War Two.

Under the deal, the Eco will remain pegged to the euro but the African countries in the bloc won’t have to keep 50 percent of their reserves in the French Treasury and there will no longer be a French representative on the currency union’s board.

Critics of the CFA have long seen it as a relic from colonial times while proponents of the currency say it has provided financial stability in a sometimes turbulent region.

“This is a historic day for West Africa,” President Ouattara said during a news conference with President Macron in the country’s main city Abidjan.

In 2017, Macron highlighted the stabilising benefits of the CFA but said it was up to African governments to determine the future of the currency.

“Yes, it’s the end of certain relics of the past. Yes it’s progress ... I do not want influence through guardianship, I do not want influence through intrusion. That’s not the century that’s being built today,” said Macron.

The CFA is used in 14 African countries with a combined population of about 150 million and $235 billion of gross domestic product.

However, the changes will only affect the West African form of the currency used by Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo - all former French colonies except Guinea Bissau.

The six countries using the Central African CFA are Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic, Congo Republic, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, - all former French colonies with the exception of Equatorial Guinea.

The CFA franc was born in 1945 and at the time stood for “Colonies Francaises d’Afrique” (French Colonies in Africa).

It now stands for “Communaute Financiere Africaine” (African Financial Community) in West Africa and in Central Africa it means “Cooperation Financiere en Afrique Centrale” (Financial Cooperation in Central Africa).