The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Mr. Godwin Emefiele has described the responses of member states of West African Monetary Zone, (WAMZ), on the global pandemic as timely, proactive and commendable.
These responses according to him were aimed at ensuring price and financial system stability, while also mitigating financial fallout on both corporates and households.
The Governor made the commendation in a keynote Address at the Policy Dialogue with the theme: “Monetary Policy Responses of the Member States of the West African Monetary Zone, (WAMZ): Emerging Lessons from COVID-19 Pandemic” held in Lagos on November 27, 2020.
While noting that the pandemic had precipitated an economic emergency of unparalleled magnitude to national and global economies, Emefiele, however stated that the dialogue will provide the much-needed forum to discuss regional responses to the pandemic for better and intra-regional collaboration and coordination.
He added that “the Pandemic posed difficult challenges to policy makers and central bankers in the maintenance of price and financial system stability, while keeping an eye on the growth performance”.
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Continuing, the Governor further stated that the ”Pandemic posed difficult challenges to policy makers and central bankers in the maintenance of price and financial stability, while keeping an eye on growth performance”.
It was in view of this, according to him, that “Central Banks across the advanced, emerging and developing economies had assumed a leading role in fashioning out policy responses to both the demand and supply -side shocks that the pandemic had exerted on the economies, recalling that no economy, including those of WAMZ, was spared from the fall-out of the COVID-19 outbreak”.
The Governor identified measures to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by different economies to include reductions in policy rates, aimed at reinvigorating growth in response to the sudden economic contraction, implementation of various forms of liquidity measures to support the government’s short-term budgetary needs as well other liquidity assistance frameworks to ensure market liquidity.
Other measures, according to him were aimed at stabilizing the foreign exchange market in the face of supply shocks precipitated by the pandemic and spates of interventions to support and strengthen health institutions and medical services.
While agreeing that the above various measures had been very useful in navigating our respective economies through this difficult time, he however observed that it was “imperative for monetary policy responses to the pandemic in WAMZ to be synergized and coordinated in order to preserve the gains already achieved towards regional integration, particularly given evidences of interdependencies and likely spillover of the respective macroeconomic responses across the economies of the zone”.
He further added that to achieve this, it was imperative to create a “forum like this to facilitate the sharing of country experiences on monetary policy responses in the management of the adverse socio and macroeconomic effects of the pandemic which will go a long way to improve respective country performance in the meeting of WAMZ convergence criteria”.
In his remark, the Commissioner, Macroeconomic Policy and Economic Research of the Ecowas Commission, Dr, Kofi Konadu Apraku stated that the global concern of the pandemic which has generated demand and supply shocks have revolved around its overall impact on the economy, health and humanitarian impacts, with particular emphasis on the sectors of the economies that are most vulnerable.
He however added that the extent of the damage would ultimately depend on how quickly the virus is curtailed by governments of the monetary zone.
According to him, “ECOWAS, like other Regional Economic Communities is very concerned about the unprecedented negative public health, economic and humanitarian impacts of the pandemic.
To activate a regional response to the pandemic based on thee assessment of its effects, he informed the meeting that the ECOWAS Head of States and Government at it Extraordinary Summit held on April 23, 2020 expressed deep concern about the spread of COVID-19 and its negative social, economic, financial and human security impact on all ECOWAS States.
He added that the Summit further acknowledged response measures put in place to mitigate the negative impacts of the pandemic to regenerate economic growth and to reduce negative social, humanitarian and public health impacts of the pandemic”.
Highpoint of the symposium was the presentation by the six member countries of Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Liberia.
The West African Monetary Zone, (WAMZ) symposium was attended by Central Bank Governors/representatives of member states, Director Generals of West African Monetary Institute (WAMI), West African Monetary Agency (WAMA),West African Institute for Economic and Financial Management, (WAIFEM), Nigeria’s Minister of Finance and Director, Country Department, International Monetary Fund, (IMF).
