Libreville — Six countries in Central and Western Africa have breathed life into long-running plans to allow visa-free movement of people among their nations. At a summit in the Chadian capital of N’Djamena, the countries formally declared late on Tuesday that the scheme had now been ratified by all members. The agreement gathers six francophone states — Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of Congo — in a bloc called the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (Cemac). The association, set up in 2000, has a potential market of 30-million consumers, many of whom, however, live in poverty. The summit, in its statement, authorised a regional bank, the Development Bank of the Central African States, to allocate 1.7-billion CFA francs ($3.01m), "to support the application of the agreement". Negotiations on the deal began more than 15 years ago, culminating in a draft agreement in 2013 that awaited ratification by all its members. Th...
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