Central African summit calls for reflection on CFA franc

Leaders from six central African countries on Friday called for "in-depth thinking" on the CFA franc, whose future has come into question in West Africa.

The extraordinary one-day meeting in Yaounde brought together leaders from Cameroon, Chad, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of Congo.

As members of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC), the nations jointly use the CFA franc, a currency rooted in the French colonial era in western and central Africa.

The summit examined "monetary cooperation with France (and) decided to launch in-depth thinking on the conditions and framework of a new cooperation," an end-of-summit communique said.

"In this context, they tasked the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) to propose in a reasonable timeframe an appropriate blueprint leading to currency's evolution."

The CFA - its initials come from the French words for African Financial Community - was launched on December 26, 1945 as a "franc of the French colonies of Africa."

The money then morphed into two geographic variants, one for eight countries in western Africa and another for six in central Africa, with a combined population of 155 million people.

CFA member countries must lodge 50 percent of their reserves with the Bank of France.

The currency is essentially pegged to the euro, at a fixed rate of 655.96 CFA francs per euro.

The arrangement guarantees unlimited convertibility of CFA francs into euros, facilitates inter-zone transfers and helps price stability.