Egyptian stocks traded higher on Thursday backed by the finance minister’s remarks that the country is making “good” progress in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund.

“We are making good progress in negotiations with the IMF,” Minister of Finance Amr El-Garhy said at a news conference on Thursday. The talks with the IMF delegation, which are expected to continue until mid-August, relate to the current budget, he said.

Egypt is negotiating a $12 billion loan with the IMF and is pushing ahead with reforms, including plans for a VAT tax and further subsidy cuts that were put on hold when global oil prices dropped.

“We want to achieve the figures we set for the budget … This is what we are discussing with the IMF,” Garhy said.

Main index, EGX30 surged 1.86 percent, to more than one-year high of 8255.36 points.

Other indices; EGX50 EWI index also grew 0.89 percent, to 1406.62 points; EGX20 hiked 1.58 percent, to 8534.73 points.

Mid- and small-cap index EGX70 rose 0.04 percent, to 360.45 points. Price index, EGX100 picked up 0.49 percent, to 794.48 points.

Market Cap

Market capitalisation incurred losses worth around 6.2 billion Egyptian pounds ($698.2 million), to record 419.002 billion pounds during the closing session of Thursday.

Turnovers

The bourse’s trading volume reached 407.808 million securities, with turnovers, closing at 1.050 billion pounds, exchanged through 24,861 transactions.

Also during the closing session, 178 listed securities have been traded in, 44 declined, 88 advanced; while 43 kept their previous levels.

Investors’ Activities

Non-Arab foreign and Arab investors were net buyers controlling 10.98 and 11.93 percent respectively of the total markets, with a net equity of 1.533 million pounds and 21.531 million pounds, respectively, excluding the deals.

On the contrary, local investors were net sellers capturing 77.1 percent of the total market, with a net equity of 23.065 million pounds, excluding the deals.