Egypt’s foreign currency gap saw a significant contraction to record $400 million in July 2022 from February’s $3.9 billion, revealed First Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) Gamal Negm on Saturday.
Negm pointed to the Central Bank of Egypt’s decisions regarding regulating imports as contributing to the decrease. He pointed out that the CBE is working to protect citizens’ deposits, whose value in the banking sector has reached EGP 9 trillion, through the application of strict rules.
Egypt saw billions worth of foreign currency leave the local market since the start of the Russia/Ukraine conflict. In a recent report, CBE revealed that Egypt’s net foreign direct investment inflows (FDI) rose by 52.9% during the first 9 months of the previous fiscal year (FY 2021/2022), right before the conflict began.
Negm also ruled out any considerable devaluation of the local currency soon.
The country’s current account deficit in the first 9 months of FY 2021/2022 was registered as $13.6 billion, despite a $3 billion rise in the trade balance deficit.
In its monthly report released in July, the CBE explained that the total loan balances provided to clients of banks other than the CBE rose in April by about EGP 70 billion to reach EGP 3,418 trillion, compared to EGP 3,348 trillion in the previous month.
