- July 26, 2022
- Posted by: Charles Yeboah Nixon
- Categories: Banking and Finance, Economics, Finance, Forex
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Executive Board has concluded the second reviews of the Extended Credit Facility and Extended Fund Facility Arrangements for Cameroon.
The completion of the second reviews provides Cameroon with access to the equivalent of US$72.9 million from the IMF.
“The completion of the second reviews enables the disbursement of SDR 18.4 million (about US$ 24.3 million) under the ECF Arrangement, and purchases of SDR 36.8 million (about US$ 48.6 million) under the EFF Arrangement, bringing total access under the arrangements to SDR 262.2 million (about US$ 346.1 million).”
The Executive Board also approved the authorities’ request for a waiver of applicability for the end-June 2022 performance criteria.
Cameroon’s three-year ECF-EFF arrangements were approved on July 29, 2021 and are built around five pillars.
They are mitigating the health, economic, and social consequences of the pandemic while ensuring fiscal and external sustainability; reinforcing good governance and strengthening the transparency and the anti-corruption framework; accelerating structural fiscal reforms to modernize the tax and customs administrations, mobilize revenue, improve public financial management, increase public investment efficiency, and reduce fiscal risks from state-owned enterprises; strengthening debt management and ensuring debt levels remain sustainable and implementing structural reforms to accelerate economic diversification, boost financial sector resilience and inclusion, and promote gender equality and a greener economy.
The IMF said Cameroon had started to recover from the COVID-19 shock in 2021, prior to the war in Ukraine.
“After a record low of -2.2% year on year (yoy) in quarter 2, 2020, real Gross Domestic Product growth rate gradually recovered to reach 3.6% in 2021, supported by a strong recovery in the primary and tertiary sectors. The nascent economic recovery in 2021 is now subject to greater uncertainties with spillovers from the war in Ukraine, high inflationary pressures, especially on food and fuel prices, and a tightening of global financial conditions”.
The economic outlook for 2022 remains positive, but with great uncertainties.
Real GDP growth is projected at 3.8% in 2022, down from 4.5% at the time of the programme’s first reviews.
Inflation is also projected to rise to 4.6% in 2022, but to remain below 3% in the medium term.
