The Wall Street Journal takes stock of Egypt’s Gordian knot of foreign currency shortage and increasing inflation in ‘Bets on Egypt currency devaluation rise’ (paywall). “A weaker currency will improve Egypt’s longer-term prospects but is also likely to result in higher prices, which the country can ill-afford. Since March’s devaluation, inflation has jumped to nearly 14% in annual terms in June,” writes Nikhil Lohade and Dahlia Kholaif. The authors also note that Nigeria dropped its currency peg just last month, though this may be perhaps an unfair comparison considering the value of their oil exports in 2015 was at USD 41.8 bn, even after taking into consideration prolonged depressed oil prices. EFG Hermes’ Mohamed Abu Basha, CI Capital’s Hany Farahat and Capital Economics’ Jason Tuvey all make appearances discussing liquidity shields, the inflationary impact of the VAT and the expectation that the EGP fall beyond EGP 10 next year.