The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) announced on Wednesday that Egypt’s foreign currency reserves rose to US $44.41 billion in August, compared to $44.31 billion in July.
Egypt’s foreign exchange reserves were around $36 billion before the January 25 Revolution of 2011. It fell down to nearly $19 billion until a $12 billion loan was signed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in November 2016.
The flotation of the Egyptian pound and high interest rates helped attract foreign investments for government debt instruments, which reached about $23 billion at the end of March.
Egypt has expanded foreign borrowing in hard currency over the past months to finance the budget deficit and to provide the US dollar on market, in an attempt to control the exchange rate and eliminate the black market.
The CBE said last month that the country’s foreign debt reached $88.2 billion at the end of March 2018, an increase of $9.1 billion or 11.6 percent since the end of June 2017.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
