BEAC’s Monetary Committee Policy held its second ordinary session for the year last Friday.

The Central African Sub-region has sustained a 5.7 per cent growth rate in the ongoing fiscal year, members of the Monetary Committee Policy (CPM) of the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) have said. The Governor of BEAC, Lucas Abaga Nchama, who is also the Statutory President of CPM made the disclosure last Friday July 27 during a press briefing that was preceded by the second ordinary session of the Committee for 2012 at the BEAC’s headquarters in Yaounde.

The 5.7 per cent growth rate, Abaga Nchama said, represents a 0.6 per cent improvement from that of 2011 which at term stood at 5.1 per cent. The bright macroeconomic skies are thanks to improved output of the petroleum and gas sectors as well as well guided non-petroleum sectors. “This growth is bolstered by a lift in the primary sector, a better performance of manufacturing industries and services likewise a rapid intensification of public infrastructure projects in CEMAC member countries,” he said.

It also emerged from Friday’s session that the public accounts of the sub-region have improved thanks to increased income from the petroleum sector. Current external debt deficit for 2012 stands at -3 per cent, down from -4.4 per cent in 2011. With the cash inflows, inflation rate in the sub-region has moved from 2.7 per cent in 2011 to 3.2 per cent in 2012.

Assisted in the press conference by the Vice Governor of BEAC, Tahir Hamid Nguilin, and BEAC’s Director General of Studies, Finances and International Relations, Joachim Lema Okili, CPM’s Statutory President announced that they have unanimously resolved to maintain the interest rate on calls for tender as well as the coefficients on obligatory reserves and the rate of payment on the reserves.

 The committee also agreed to reduce by 25 points the rate of remunerating public deposits and a 25-point reduction too on the interest rate on the placement of banks. Although the Central African sub-region has waded off the effects of the global economic melt-down, especially the Euro zone crisis, Lucas Abaga Nchama prayed CEMAC member countries to continue with efforts to improve their investment climates so as to attract direct foreign and local investments capable of giving the sub-region sustainable development.