Egypt’s foreign debt jumps 40% to $67b — central bank

CAIRO

Egypt’s foreign debt jumped 40.8 per cent year-on-year to $67.32 billion in December, Central Bank figures showed. Egypt has been negotiating billions of dollars in aid from various lenders to help revive an economy hit by political upheaval since a 2011 revolt, and to ease a dollar shortage that has crippled imports and drove away foreign investors.

Egypt has received the first tranche of a three-year $12 billion (Dh44 billion) loan deal with the IMF and is expecting to receive the second tranche soon. The second tranche of a $3 billion loan from the World Bank was disbursed to Egypt last month.The central bank said domestic debt rose 28.9 per cent to $3.05 billion.

Foreign reserves

Egypt’s central bank expects foreign reserves to jump to over $28.5 billion for the month of March, the highest since March 2011, a bank deputy governor told the country’s state news agency Mena on Sunday. Egypt’s net foreign reserves were at $26.542 billion at the end of February and have been climbing ever since it clinched a $12 billion three-year loan from the International Monetary Fund in November in a bid to lure back foreign capital.