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COVID-19 Restrictions

Movement Restrictions:

• Is a curfew in place? No
• Are there restrictions on intercity or interstate travel? No

Transportation Options:

• Are commercial flights operating? Yes
• Is public transportation operating? Yes

Fines for Non-Compliance: N/A

Economic Measures

Key Policy Responses as of June 3, 2021

FISCAL

• The Parliament on July 9, 2020 approved the revised 2020 budget which seeks to address the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19. Several measures have been taken under the revised budget, including: (i) lowering import duties and VAT for hygiene and healthcare goods and services critical to tackle COVID-19, and for tourism businesses; (ii) lowering other selected tax rates; (iii) delaying tax payments, and waiving late payment fines and penalties; (iv) suspending government fees charged on informal sector operators for rent, security and parking in urban markets; (v) lowering the licensing fee for companies in the transportation and tourism sectors; (vi) suspending on-site tax inspection operations; (vii) Donating food and providing assistance to households and local small businesses; (viii) supporting the water and electricity bills, including through cancelation, of the most vulnerable social groups; and (ix) securing adequate stocks of consumer products and strengthening surveillance of prices.

  The emergency response plan, initially prepared for March – June 2020, was updated to cover both health-related measures and measures to support the social and economic recovery. This includes a partial guarantee fund, which the government expects to leverage to help the financial sector inject fresh credit into the economy during 2020-2021 in support of private businesses in hard-hit sectors.

  The revised 2020 budget widens the overall fiscal deficit to 5.3 percent of GDP, reflecting the impact of Covid19 especially on revenue collection, which is now projected to be 2.6 percent of GDP lower relative to the original budget. On the expenditure side, the authorities made room for COVID19-related health and transfers expenditures by keeping the wage bill unchanged, cancelling non-priority spending on goods and services and reducing transfers. The widening of the deficit is fully financed by additional external budget support.

  On April 27, Heads of states of the West-Africa Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) declared a temporary suspension of the WAEMU growth and stability Pact setting six convergence criteria, including the 3 percent of GDP fiscal deficit rule, to help member-countries cope with the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. This temporary suspension will allow member-countries to raise their overall fiscal deficit temporarily and use the additional external support provided by donors in response to the COVID-19 crisis. The Heads of States’ Declaration sets a clear expectation that fiscal consolidation will resume once the crisis is over.

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. In April 2020, 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. In June 2020, 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 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 solvent customers with Covid19-related repayment difficulties to postpone for a 3 month renewable period up to end-2020 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 initially issued by Burkina Faso was equivalent to 0.8 percent of GDP, with some rollover possibility through such special T-Bills benefitting from a refinancing rate equivalent to the prevailing monetary policy rate but to be all paid back by end-2020. The BCEAO has launched in February 2021 a special 6-month refinancing window at the floor of the interest rate corridor to help WAEMU governments meet Covid-19 recovery funding needs. Through this special window banks shall be able to refinance all bonds with maturity of 3 years or more governments currently plan to issue on the regional financial market in 2021. The amount of bonds eligible to the new refinancing window for Burkina Faso is equivalent to 5.9 percent of projected 2021 GDP. The new refinancing window is expected to remain in place for the term of the eligible bonds issued in 2021. Finally, WAEMU authorities have extended by one year the five-year period initiated in 2018 for the transition to Basel 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. In addition, in June 2020, the West African Development Bank (BOAD) created a CFAF 100 billion window to extend 5 to 7 year refinancing of banks's credit to SMEs in the 8 WAEMU member countries. In December 2020, the BCEAO encouraged WAEMU banks to refrain from distributing dividends with a view to strengthening their capital buffers in anticipation of the impact of the Covid19 crisis on asset quality.

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