Single currency challenges hilighted

Africa is unlikely to have a common currency soon, but technology could help overcome the difficulties posed by the multiplicity of currencies when trading. That’s the view of African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement secretary-general Wamkele Mene. A report on the Fin24 site notes that he said moving towards a common currency was the objective as outlined in the Abuja Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community of 1991. ‘We know there are a number of challenges that are related to that,’ he told a webinar hosted by the ANC's Progressive Business Forum. ‘You have to deal with macro-economic convergence and so on, but in the interim what do we do to overcome the fact that there are 42 currencies on the continent?’ He said the pan-African payments and settlements platform that was being developed in partnership with Afreximbank would go a long way toward addressing this issue and towards making trade on the African continent less costly and more efficient.