CEMAC Sub-region Projects 5.8 Per cent Growth Rate For 2013

Godlove BAINKONG, Cameroon Tribune du 20-12-2012

The Monetary Policy Committee of BEAC held its fourth ordinary session yesterday December 20.

The Monetary Policy Committee (CPM) of the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) says the economies of the sub-region are promising in 2013 and could hit a 5.8 per cent growth rate, all things being equal, up from 5.6 per cent in 2012. The optimism, according to a news release that sanctioned the committee’s fourth ordinary session for 2012 yesterday December 20, is based on projected petroleum production as well as the putting in place of giant projects in the mining, energy and infrastructural sectors.

Inflation is expected to be at 3 per cent in 2013 down from 3.5 per cent in 2012. These statistics, the committee underlined, are better compared with the world’s projected situation. Global economic growth, the release noted, could move from 2.9 per cent in 2012 to 3.4 per cent in 2013. The anticipated improvement is attributed to improved confidence of consumers on the world’s economy.

Chaired by BEAC’s Governor, Lucas Abaga Nchama, who is also the Statutory Chairman of CPM, yesterday’s session was to examined the path the sub-regional economies have covered in the year ebbing out and what could be done to keep them going irrespective of the increasingly threatening Euro zone crises.

The committee among others, decided to maintain BEAC’s intervention conditions on banking institutions in the sub-region, maintain the coefficient of obligatory reserves and the remuneration rate of the reserves as well as interest rates on public placements.