Global Courant
The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) paid approximately $7.154 billion on behalf of the Egyptian government by the end of the second quarter of 2022/2023, representing installments and interest for outstanding debt.
The CBE’s Statistical Bulletin showed that debt was broken down into installments paid of $5.843 billion and interest paid of $1.311 billion.
From July to December 2022, the value of interest and installments paid was $11.9 billion, split between $4.784 billion in the first quarter and $7.154 billion in the second quarter.
Premiums paid during the 2021/2022 fiscal year were approximately $21.7 billion and interest paid was approximately $4.570 billion.
The bulletin showed that the ratio of the external debt balance to GDP was about 35.5 percent at the end of December 2022.
The Central Bank also said that total customer deposits at banks other than the CBE had risen to LE9.138 trillion at the end of February 2023, compared to LE9.021 trillion at the end of January – an increase of LE116.9 billion.
In its latest monthly statistical bulletin, the CBE said deposits at the end of February were divided into government deposits equal to LE 2.065 trillion and non-governmental deposits of LE 7.072 trillion.
Government deposits were divided into local currency deposits, LE 1.725 trillion, and foreign currency deposits, LE 340.036 billion, at the end of February.
The Standard Chartered Bank said nearly a third of Egypt’s debt is in foreign currency, and any additional moves in the US dollar exchange rate against the Egyptian pound will increase the debt ratio.
In its recent report, the bank explained that the increase in the value of the U.S. dollar to about LE 38 (as traded on the black market) the debt-to-GDP ratio would swell to more than 100 percent by the end of June 2023, the private Masrawy website reported.
Egypt’s foreign debt rose 5.2 percent during the last quarter of last year to $162.9 billion at the end of December, compared to $154.9 billion in September, according to data from the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development.
