Official Resources

No data

Travel Restrictions

Flights to Guinea-Bissau are suspended.
This does not apply to:
- emergency flights;
- humanitarian, medical and rescue flights;
- technical stops without passenger disembarkation;
- other operational flights related to security.

Source : IATA Timatic

Economic Measures

Key Policy Responses

FISCAL

• The government has increased monthly health expenditure by CFAF 222 million (US$ 0.4 million) to purchase medicine, food, services, and equipment for hospitals. Authorities took other various emergency health-related measures of CFAF 2.753 million (US$ 5 million or 0.3 percent of GDP). The authorities are seeking support from multilateral donors to finance additional expenses. The government has also provided some assistance to households. CFAF 580 million (US$ 1 million or 0.07 percent of GDP) were used to distribute 20,000 bags of rice and 10,000 bags of sugar throughout the country. The authorities are seeking international financial support to complement its assistance program.

MONETARY AND MACRO-FINANCIAL

• The regional central bank (BCEAO) for the West-African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) has taken steps to better satisfy banks’ demand for liquidity and mitigate the negative impact of the pandemic on economic activity. The BCEAO adopted a full allotment strategy at a fixed rate of 2.5 percent (the minimum monetary policy rate) thereby allowing banks to satisfy their liquidity needs fully at a rate about 25 basis points lower than before the crisis. On June 22, the Monetary Policy Committee cut by 50 basis points the ceiling and the floor of the monetary policy corridor, to 4 and 2 percent respectively. The BCEAO has also: (i) extended the collateral framework to access central bank refinancing to include bank loans to prequalified 1,700 private companies; (ii) set-up a framework inviting banks and microfinance institutions to accommodate demands from customers with COVID-19 related repayment difficulties to postpone for a 3 month renewable period debt service falling due, without the need to classify such postponed claims as non performing; and (iii) introduced measures to promote the use of electronic payments. In addition, the BCEAO launched in April 2020 a special 3-month refinancing window at a fixed rate of 2.5 percent for limited amounts of 3-month "Covid-19 T-Bills" to be issued by each WAEMU sovereign to help meet immediate funding needs related to the current pandemic. The amount of such special T-Bills issued by Guinea Bissau is equivalent to 1.9 percent of GDP. Guinea-Bissau has been recently allowed to issue the equivalent of 1.2 percent of GDP of new 3-months Covid-19 T-Bills that banks may refinance with the BCEAO for their term to maturity at 2 percent. Finally, WAEMU authorities have extended by one year the five-year period initiated in 2018 for the transition to Basle II/III bank prudential requirements. In particular, the regulatory capital adequacy ratio will remain unchanged at end-2020 from its 2019 level of 9.5 percent, before gradually increasing to 11.5 percent by 2023 instead of 2022 initially planned.

EXCHANGE RATE AND BALANCE OF PAYMENTS

• No measures.

Source : IMF & WB

Civic Freedom Tracker

STATE OF EMERGENCY

The government has declared a nationwide "state of emergency" and introduced restrictive measures to prevent further spread of the virus, including the closure of all land and sea borders and commercial air links. Public transport has also been suspended, while only essential shops remain open, including food and medical stores. (See primary source or citation here)

Type: order
Date Introduced: 06 oct 2020
Issue(s): Emergency