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Tuesday, 3 January 2017

Prime Minister sees exchange rate stabilizing in three months

Sending a message to the public: The exchange rate should stabilize in three months’ time as overall economic conditions begin to improve, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail promised. Paving the way for that stability is Egypt’s transformation into a free market economy through legislative reforms, the gradual phase-out of subsidies, and the shift in focus from imports to FX-earning exports, Ismail told Egyptian state television, Al Shorouk reported.

Flows into banking system look reasonable: An exclusive report by Youm7 quotes Amer as having said that c. USD 6.9 bn has flowed into the banking system since the float.

The prime minister’s remarks came as the Central Bank released figures on Monday showing M2 money supply was up 39% y-o-y at the end of November to EGP 2.6 tn compared to EGP 1.87 tn last year. Also notable: On a month-on-month basis, local currency deposits were up 5.4% to EGP 1.57 tn in November — in large part due to the high-interest CDs offered by many domestic banks after the float of the EGP. Foreign currency deposits doubled between October and November to EGP 653 bn in local currency terms, suggesting the float of the pound attracted fresh FCY deposits. We’ll be keeping a close eye on what happens to this figure in the December report.

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