The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) is offering today US$ 40 million to local banks at its 69th foreign exchange auction and its 53th since Hisham Ramez hold the office of the CBE’s Governor last February. Consequently, CBE has pumped worth US$ 2.14 billion, through periodic auction, in the exchange market since last February. It is worth mentioning that CBE had introduced FX auctions at the end of last year in an effort to provide the market with US dollar liquidity, following the country’s shortage of hard currency, which resulted from the political, and security’s unrests as well as the halt of the investment and tourism’s activities. Following these FX auction, US dollar witnessed a remarkable increase of EGP 0.65 as it surged to EGP 7.02 compared to EGP 6.37 before the auction. More»

Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), in its monthly inflation developments, stated that the decline of the prices of poultry, vegetables and seafood led to diminishing the monthly inflation rates, whereas poultry prices have declined by 4.63% to contribute to decreasing the inflation rates by 0.23%. CBE declared that the inflation rates declined by 0.16% compared to 1.47% in April. The core inflation rates achieved stability during May compared to an increase of 0.97% in April, whilst the annual rate increased to 8.20 % in May from 8.11 % in April. Moreover, the prices of fresh vegetables went down by 2.08% in May after they increased by 19.85% cumulatively since the beginning of 2013, as it contributed negatively by 0.17% to the monthly core inflation rate, while most of the vegetables prices stood unchanged. Fish and Seafood prices have decreased by 2.08% in May. Prices of rice have inched by 4.53% to contribute by 0.10% in the monthly inflation rate.  Meanwhile, the prices of cheese, eggs, butter, edible oils and milk have increased, contributing by 0.12% to the monthly headline inflation. Prices of other services experienced a marginal increase in May, on the back of raising the prices of restaurant meals, furniture moving services as well as Hajj and Umrah trips.  In the meantime, prices of consumer goods went up by 0.28% in May, because the prices of cars, hairdressers, air conditioning, motor cycle and heaters have inched up, whilst the rates of the paid services remained unchanged. More»

Yehia Abou El-Fotouh - Executive Committee Member and Corporate Credit Risk,Debt Recover & Restructuring Groups Head at the National Bank of Egypt (NBE) – said he expects the bank’s irregular dept portfolio will likely reach EGP 6 Mln by the end of the current fiscal year 2012/13, compared to EGP 6.6 billion posted by the end of last May. Mr. Abou El-Fotouh further told Amwal Al Ghad that NBE has finalized a settlement worth EGP 75 million with Aswan-based company for the natural gas distribution, through paying EGP 3 million in cash, in return for acquiring share in the company’s assets. He pointed out that his bank has backed up tourism sector within the framework of Central Bank of Egypt (CBE)’s initiative to support the most affected sector by the post-revolt incidents. Therefore, the NBE has postponed due premiums worth EGP 850 million in favor of the sector. It is worth mentioning that NBE reached last week a final agreement with businessman Walid Tawfik, a former legitimate and legal importer of KIA motors in Egypt, over debt settlement ranging between EGP 190 - 200 million. More»

Egypt's government is in the late stages of verifying its economic reform programme with the International Monetary Fund before obtaining a $4.8 billion IMF loan, its central bank governor said on Saturday. The loan, needed to help stabilise Egypt's balance of payments and state finances, has been under discussion for two years but agreement has repeatedly been postponed by political unrest in the country and the government's reluctance to commit to austerity measures. "The IMF is verifying numbers with the government regarding the programme and they are in late stages of verifying all the numbers," central bank governor Hisham Ramez told reporters after a meeting of regional central bank chiefs in Abu Dhabi on Saturday. There have been no changes to the plan or the amount of aid the country is seeking, he added. More»

The volume of investments in the Egypt’s government debt instruments “treasury bills” has hit a new record, jumping to its highest level to EGP 406.1 billion by the end of last March, moved up by 3.9% at 15.3 billion in one month, compared to EGP 390.8 billion by the end of last February. This comes despite the fact that the Egyptian government has stressed the importance of foreign borrowing amid the grave levels of the domestic debt which surged to EGP 1.380 trillion by the end of the second quarter of the current fiscal year. An increase of EGP 15.3 billion in one month is considered the highest ever as it represented 50% of the total growth of the first 9 months of the current fiscal year of EGP 32.6 billion. That’s why the government had formerly expected that the budget deficit is likely to exceed EGP 200 billion. The investments of the banking sector in the T-bills have reached EGP 278.4 billion by the end of last March, representing 68.6% of the total investments, whereas the volume of the public-sector banks’ investments seizes 51.2% worth EGP 142.5 billion of the total investments. Meanwhile, the private-sector banks’ investments have captured 42% (EGP 116.8) of the total volume of investments  of the banking sector in Egypt. Foreign banks seized 5.3% worth EGP 14.8 billion of the total volume of investments; while the specialized banks captured the lowest rate of 1.5 % worth EGP 4.3 billion. More»