INTEGRATION ECONOMIQUE ET MONETAIRE : UNE ETUDE DYNAMIQUE DES DEUX ZONES FRANCS

Résumé

The main objective of this paper is to study the trade dynamics of the only two existing currency areas in Africa, with a view to determining whether the establishment of the securrency are as has given rise to significant trade links within their respective zones, there by indicating the premise for a future success of a continental economic and monetary union. The paper focuses solely on the trade aspect of integration, with the aim of assessing and understanding the dynamics driven by the constitution of an EMU in Africa, using the two free trade zones (CEMAC and WAEMU) as case studies.  Thus, for the purposes of this study, two groups of indicators are used. The first group consists of indicators of trade openness and the second group of indicators attempts to measure the degree of intensity of intra-zone trade. The particularity of this study is to obtain dynamic indicators to understand the evolution of trade integration and to compare on this basis the two free zones over the recent period from 1995 to 2017. At the end of this study, the results obtained mainly show that : (i) the two zones have fairly high degrees of trade openness vis-à-vis the outside world than within the zone; (ii) despite this, the trade intensity indicators (TII) indicate intense intra-zone trade that is much more pronounced in the WAEMU; (iii) over the recent period the CEMAC zone seems to have caught up, while for the WAEMU it is falling; (iv) finally, in the two zones, we note the existence of high degrees of heterogeneity between the two zones. As for the participation of member countries in intra-zone trade, this heterogeneity depends on the exporting or importing positions.