Egypt’s Central Bank provides $150 bln within two years

Egypt’s Central Bank and the banking system has provided an amount of $150 billion within two years so as to repay external debts, secure funds for importing, and pay oil companies dues, said Central Bank of Egypt governor Tarek Amer.

Amer made these remarks last Thursday during the 23rd annual Arab Banking Conference 2017 that was organised by the Union of Arab Banks.

He added that Egypt has yet to fail on repaying its external obligations, pointing out that the CBE is currently working on paving the way for the foreign currency market through removing all restrictions on currency trading, which was reflected on restoring confidence on the Egyptian economy and positively affected all the indicators.

Moreover, Amer confirmed that the levels of the current foreign reserve are good and is covering the country imports for the upcoming 8 months.

On the other hand, Amer added that the mandatory reserve won’t affect the profits of the banks, thus the mandatory reserve represents 14% of the banks’ deposits, after it has increased four percent in October.

The CBE governor also expected that the dollar exchange rates would remain in the current levels confirming that the supply and demand has become the main determinant of the dollar rate since the liberalization of the exchange rate in November 2016.