Between 2020 and 2024, Cameroon has a deficit in its foreign exchange operations at the Central Bank of Central African States (BEAC) window of 1.6 trillion CFA francs (2.8 billion USD). This information was revealed during the “Finance Week” in Yaoundé on June 17, 2025 by the national director of the Central Bank for Cameroon, Pierre Emmanuel Nkoa Ayissi. He recalls that “for the year 2023 alone, this average balance was 800 billion CFA francs (1.4 billion USD)”.
This situation, according to the BEAC official, is “a major contradiction in the management of foreign exchange within the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC)”. And for good reason, Pierre Emmanuel Nkoa Ayissi points out, “Cameroon appears both as the main provider of foreign exchange in the sub-region, and as the largest consumer of foreign exchange at the central bank window”.
This assertion is supported by the statements of the Secretary General of the Cameroonian Ministry of Finance. Gilbert Didier Edoa reveals that “Cameroon contributes between 40% and 58% annually to the constitution of the foreign exchange reserves of CEMAC, representing on average nearly half of the external assets common to the six member states (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Chad)”. As a result, it is learned that with an average annual contribution to the CEMAC foreign exchange reserves estimated at 49%, Cameroon, which accounts for around 40% of the sub-region’s industrial fabric, guarantees alone the imports.
Under monetary agreements with France, it appears that 50% of these foreign exchange reserves go back to the CEMAC countries via the BEAC, while the French Treasury’s operations account captures the other 50%, which constitute a solidarity fund to settle import bills for each country. A mechanism that balances these payments, with some countries with limited resources mobilizing more foreign exchange than they hold, relying on surpluses generated by others, as is the case with Cameroon, considered as “the black sheep of the sub-region” by the national director of the BEAC for Cameroon.
In response to this situation, which indirectly weakens the BEAC’s ability to maintain an external coverage level in line with the stability criteria set during its March 24, 2025 session held in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, the BEAC’s Monetary Policy Committee projected a 4% increase in the CEMAC countries’ foreign exchange reserves in 2025, to 7.584.9 billion CFA francs (approximately 13 billion USD). This corresponds to 4.8 months of imports of goods and services, compared to 4.6 months at the end of 2024. During this meeting, the governor of the BEAC, Yvon Sana Bangui, justified his projections by “the first results of the states’ import-substitution policies aimed at reducing imports, and the effective repatriation of funds for the restoration of mining sites, for which an agreement is however slow to be reached between the central bank, the CEMAC countries and the active mining operators in this area”. He announced “a final round of negotiations shortly, after the failure of the decisive meeting on April 30, 2025”.
