UEMOA cenbank frees up $1.5 bln for internal debts

ABIDJAN (Reuters) - The central bank for the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) will disburse 700 billion CFA francs so that governments in the eight-nation bloc can pay off internal debts, a statement said.

The total internal debt of the group, which is currently led by Ivory Coast and also includes Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo, is around 1.4 trillion CFA, the bloc said in a statement on Saturday.

"The council of ministers notes with satisfaction that of a total of 900 billion CFA earmarked for paying off debts, about 700 billion CFA has been mobolised with the help of the central bank," read a UEMOA statement after a meeting on Saturday.

The decision follows an announcement on Friday that the bloc had cut its 2009 economic growth forecast to 3.2 percent from 4.7 percent as the region, felt the impact of the global economic crisis.

Economic growth in the union, formed 1994 to integrate the economies of countries using the West African CFA franc as a currency, depends largely on output and price of commodities like cocoa, cotton, and gold.

Ivory Coast, the leading economy in the bloc, is mired in political wrangling over a repeatedly-delayed presidential election, which is meant to end years of crisis sparked by a 2002-2003 civil war.