It’s a drop in the bucket, but repatriation of foreign profits stranded in Egypt has begun. The National bank of Egypt repatriated on Thursday some USD 1 mn in profits owed foreign investors, Youm7 reported yesterday. (Yes, that’s USD 1 bn, not USD 1 bn.) The sum, while modest, is the “first time in years” that the NBE has been able to repatriate profits in that amount, the bank’s vice-chairman told the newspaper. The move came a day after the Central Bank gave the banking sector the green light to allocate a portion of their excess foreign currency to the repatriation of dividends owed to foreign investors.

The banking sector has brought USD 4.9 bn in from the market since the float of the EGP in early November, senior banking sources told Al Masry Al Youm. NBE brought in USD 1.2 bn, bank president Hisham Okasha said, while Banque Misr raked in USD 710 mn, a senior official from the bank tells Al Mal. Meanwhile, Okasha and Banque Misr head Mohamed El Etreby both denied that they were planning to cut their high-yield CDs, AMAY reports. Okasha did state that NBE is considering curbing supply.