Press Release No. 96/34

Press Release: Twelve African Countries of the CFA Franc Zone Accept Article VIII Obligations

June 25, 1996

In a concerted action, the Governments of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, the Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo formally notified the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that they have accepted the obligations of Article VIII, Sections 2, 3, and 4 of the IMF Articles of Agreement, effective June 1, 1996. IMF members that accept Article VIII obligations undertake to refrain from imposing restrictions on making payments and transfers for current international transactions or from engaging in discriminatory or multiple currency practices without IMF approval. A total of 128 countries have now assumed Article VIII status.

As the IMF states in its Articles of Agreement, two of its goals are to facilitate the expansion and balanced growth of international trade and thereby contribute to the promotion and maintenance of high levels of employment and real income; and to assist in the establishment of a multilateral system of payments in respect of current transactions between IMF members. To achieve these objectives, the IMF exercises firm surveillance over the exchange rate policies of its members, and oversees the elimination of exchange restrictions that hamper the growth of world trade.

By accepting the obligations of Article VIII, member countries assure the international community that they will pursue sound economic policies that will obviate the need to use restrictions on making payments and transfers for current international transactions, and thereby contribute to a multilateral payments system free of restrictions.

Dates of membership of the 12 countries concerned and their quotas are as follows²:

1. The CFA Franc Zone currently consists of two separate groups of sub-Saharan African countries. The first group includes the seven members of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU)--Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. The second group includes the six members of the Central African Economic and Monetary Union (CAEMC)--Cameroon, the Central African Republic (C.A.R.), Chad, the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon. These countries share a common currency, the CFA franc, where CFA stands for Communaute Financiere Africaine in the WAEMU and for Cooperation Financiere en Afrique Centrale in the CAEMC.

2. A member's quota in the IMF determines, in particular, the amount of its subscription, its voting weight, its access to IMF financing, and its allocation of SDRs.