The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has granted Bangui a further extension of three under the benchmark program.
The extension aims to give “Central African authorities more time to obtain funding guarantees from their development partners and to harmonize the Central African law on crypto-assets with regional commitments at the level of the Economic Community zone. and Monetary Policy of Central Africa (CEMAC)”.
Since July 7, an IMF mission has been staying in Bangui and ends this Friday, July 15. It is led by Oral William as part of the second review of the said country’s reference program, which was approved in December 2021.
The IMF and the Central African authorities reviewed “the progress made in the implementation of the staff-monitored program, which has been extended until the end of September 2022, at the request of the Central African authorities”.
“Performance under the benchmark program is broadly satisfactory, as most of the quantitative and structural benchmarks set for end-March appear to have been met,” said Oral William.
According to the financial institution, the Central African economy is shaken “by Covid-19, the rise in world prices for food and oil products, and shocks linked to financing, all this in a high context of food insecurity”.
Note that a staff-monitored program “is an informal agreement between the authorities of a country and IMF staff, under which the latter agree to monitor the execution of the authorities’ economic program”.
