Minister of International Relations and Co-operation Naledi Pandor says that South Africa supports the establishment of a single African currency.
She was replying to a parliamentary question.
Pandor said that the efficient functioning of institutions such as the African Central Bank and the African Monetary Institute were vital to the functioning of intra-continental trade as well as the establishment of a single continent-wide currency.
Pandor said that assumptions that South Africa did not back a single African currency were ‘incorrect’.
IRR analysts noted that the establishment of a single continent-wide currency would be difficult, given the wide disparity in levels of development and sizes of economies across the continent.
It was pointed out that the euro, the single currency used in Europe, had also had its problems, despite covering a much smaller population with fewer developmental disparities between countries. The problems in other monetary unions, such as the Common Monetary Area in Southern Africa and monetary unions in Central and West Africa, were also flagged as examples of the pitfalls of monetary unions.
[Image: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/binary-code-globe-africa-asia-1695475/]