East Africa eyes single currency by 2031

The East African region will have a single regional currency by 2031, Bank of South Sudan Governor James Alic Garang has asserted.

Speaking to Citizen TV on Wednesday during the sidelines of the 59th AFDB meeting, Garang highlighted that East African Heads of State set the date, leaving Central Bank Governors to iron out the details.

"The meeting took place in Juba, South Sudan from April 29 to May 3 and the discussions were around convergence criteria especially those things that are needed to allow us to move to a single currency which is expected to happen in 2031," he said.

Garang, while stressing that a regional currency will help ease regional trade and bolster cohesion, noted that the Central Banks are working on streamlining the four major considerations of inflation, GDP, growth, debt ratio and reserve cover.

"Some of these criteria revolve around having a reserve cover of about four months import and they also look at the inflation which is supposed to be contained within about 8 percent and then the GDP growth of four percent and that the public debt as a percent of GDP should not be more than 50 percent," he said.