Anxious west African states are watching the surging euro closely, experts say, fearing declines in their revenues from key crop exports, such as cotton, cocoa and coffee.
"The rise in the euro could frustrate exports of staple goods, which, at this time, unfortunately, are the main resources of our grouping," said Niger presidential adviser Pierre Huret on the sidelines of a day-long summit Saturday of the eight-member West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA).
"Cocoa and cotton are facing a potentially devastating fall-off," he told AFP.
In the global marketplace, staples like coffee, cocoa, fuel and cotton are valued in US dollars, while the west African currency, the CFA franc, is tied to the euro.
The CFA franc was brought into circulation in 1948, originally following the French franc, and is the common currency of 14 west African states formerly under French rule.
The UEMOA grouping was created in Dakar in January 1994 after the CFA franc was devalued by half, spreading considerable economic and social hardship through the region that includes some of the world's poorest countries.
But the rampaging euro, which reached an all-time high of 1.2872 against the greenback on Friday, could have an even greater impact on these struggling economies than a forced devaluation, said Niger's chamber of commerce president Ibrahmi Iddi Ango.
"If the euro's rise against the dollar continues, the CFA franc will reach a level that has little to do with how well our economies are actually performing," he was quoted as saying by the French financial daily Les Echos.
"This rise cannot last for long without sparking a reaction that could produce a new devaluation."
"If that's the case, still-scarred economies that did not reap the benefits of the first devaluation will be even worse off," he added.
The timing of the euro's surge is also of grave concern for UEMOA countries, coming on the heels of 16 months of conflict in Ivory Coast, which until September 2002 had been the leading economy for the bloc, accounting for 40 percent of its gross domestic product and 60 percent of its exports.
UEMOA also groups Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo.
The Ivorian economy is in its second-straight year of recession, and thousands of economic migrants who had depended on its prosperity for work have had to return home empty-handed.
Such is the case for landlocked Burkina Faso and Mali, both major cotton exporters whose goods have been sitting at the port in the main Ivory Coast city Abidjan since a failed coup bid in September 2002 boiled over into civil war in the world's top cocoa producer.
"If we are not vigilant we could, over the long-term, even lose the competitive edge our products have," Jean-Baptiste Compaore, the finance minister of Burkina Faso, said on Saturday.
Hoping to stave off any fall-out from the galloping euro, Compaore suggested the bloc diversify its exports beyond fuel and staple crops coffee, cocoa and cotton.
"We have to woo markets that have strong currencies," he said.
Experts such as Ablasse Ouedraodo of the African Development Bank sought to temper concerns linked to the strong euro, calling its rise "ephemeral".
"The dollar will rebound, and quickly," he said.
But already, the decline in the strength of the dollar is having an impact on the daily life in the Niger capital, Niamey.
Aissata Adamou wore a frown as she completed her transaction at a local bank.
"My husband sends me 100 dollars a month, she said. "But the fall in the dollar has completely messed up my budgeting."
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