Abstract

The regional bond market of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC), organized around the Bourse des Valeurs Mobilières de l'Afrique Centrale (BVMAC) and the securities settlement infrastructure of the Banque des États de l'Afrique Centrale (BEAC), remains an order of magnitude smaller and shallower than its structural analogue in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), organized around the Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières (BRVM) and UMOA-Titres. At the end of 2025, CEMAC's total bond market outstanding stood at approximately FCFA 1,305.3 billion, against a UEMOA bond market capitalization of roughly FCFA 10,495.8 billion in the same year—a gap of nearly eightfold between two currency unions sharing a common peg, comparable population scale, and broadly similar colonial-era civil law inheritance.

This paper undertakes a close textual comparison of the CEMAC and UEMOA regulatory architectures governing public debt issuance, benchmarks, primary and secondary market activity, and related market infrastructure.