Foreign investors poured some USD 925 mn into Egypt’s FX market since Wednesday: CBE

Egypt saw more than $925 million in foreign-exchange inflows since Jan. 11, the central bank said, spotlighting what it called a series of “positive indicators” after of the North African nation’s third devaluation in a year.

The CBE said in a statement that the  interbank trading activity was up more than 20x on its recent daily average in the last three days, while FX inflows to banks were further boosted by local sources, remittances, and tourism,  adding that this was a “positive indicators” for the local exchange market.

After the latest major move for the pound mid-last week, interbank trading activity was more than 20 times the recent daily average, the central bank said Monday in a statement. That enabled Egypt, which has been grappling with a foreign-exchange drought, to cover over $2 billion of importers’ needs in the past three days, according to the regulator.

Additional foreign currency from local sources, remittances from Egyptians working abroad and tourism also flowed into the market over the past three business days, the central bank statement added.

Banks operating in Egypt were able to fulfill more than $2 billion requests from importers

The USD inflows allowed local banks to cover more than USD 2 bn of importers’ requests since Wednesday, the CBE statement reads, in addition to requests from other clients.

Goods began backing up in Egyptian ports after the central bank placed restrictions on imports in February. Last month the central bank removed those restrictions, and importers have been scouring for dollars to get their goods released.