At least 40 African countries print their money in the UK, France, and Germany — decades after independence, raising questions about self-sufficiency. Countries like Ethiopia, Libya, and Angola — along with 14 other countries — place orders from British banknote printing giant De La Rue. Furthermore, six or seven other nations, including South Sudan, Tanzania, and Mauritania, are said to print theirs in Germany’s Giesecke+Devrient. At the same time, most French-speaking African countries are known to print their money with France’s central bank and with the French printing company Oberthur Fiduciaire. Only a handful of African countries, like Nigeria, Morocco, and Kenya have enough resources to print their own currencies or mint their own coins, and even they sometimes supplement production with imports. African countries have been formulating plans to boost intra-African trade. There is currently more trade with Western and Eastern countries than there is within the continent. Printing banknotes in Africa would boost profits on the continent and, at least theoretically, African countries could choose those with printing capabilities since there’s likely some idle capacity.
SOURCE: DW