The planned Southern African Development Community (SADC) monetary union should ensure that inflation within its region gets below 5% by 2012 and that it has a common market by 2015, Tito Mboweni, head of South Africa's central bank, has said.

Mboweni told a business breakfast that SADC central bank governors were meeting twice a year to ensure that goals set along the path towards monetary union were met. He suggested that currencies in the region should converge with the South African rand and the Botswana pula as the bloc develops monetary union.

Mboweni said, in his view, conflicts and lack of development on some parts of the continent meant that African monetary union had been put back to 2030 from a planned target of 2025. But he said it was important to also look on the bright side, as there had been progress in some areas.

13 July 2005