Egypt's net foreign assets jump in March after IMF review approval
Net foreign assets climbed to the equivalent of $15.08 billion from $10.18 billion at the end of February, according to Reuters calculations based on official central bank currency exchange rates.
The International Monetary Fund in early March approved the disbursement to Egypt of $1.2 billion after completing its review of the country's $8 billion economic reform programme. It also approved a request for a $1.3 billion arrangement under the IMF's resilience and sustainability facility.
Foreign investors were significant purchasers of Egyptian pound treasury bills after the approval and as one-year bills acquired after the March 2024 IMF agreement matured, two bankers said.
Egypt had been using foreign assets, which include assets held by both the central bank and commercial banks, to help prop up its currency since as long ago as September 2021. Net foreign assets turned negative in February 2022 and only returned to positive territory in May last year.
Foreign assets increased in February at both the central bank and commercial banks, while foreign liabilities rose at the central bank but declined at commercial banks.
(Reporting by Patrick Werr Editing by Gareth Jones)
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Zawya
2 hours ago
- Zawya
India's soyoil imports set for record high, palm oil at five-year low
MUMBAI - India's soyoil imports are poised to surge 60% year-on-year to a record high in 2024/25, as refiners boost purchases due to cheaper prices compared with rival palm oil, shipments of which are set to hit a five-year low, six dealers told Reuters. Higher soyoil purchases by India, the world's biggest importer of vegetable oils, will support global soyoil prices , which have risen 31% so far this year, but weigh on benchmark Malaysian palm oil futures. In the 2024/25 marketing year ending in October, soyoil imports are likely to jump to 5.5 million metric tons, from 3.44 million tons a year ago, according to estimates from dealers. Palm oil imports in the year, meanwhile, are likely to fall 13.5% from a year ago to 7.8 million metric tons, the lowest since 2019/20, dealers said. Sunflower oil imports could fall 20% to 2.8 million tons, the lowest in three years, they said. Higher soyoil imports will lift India's total edible oil imports in the year by 1% to 16.1 million tons, dealers estimated. Palm oil traded at a premium for many months this year, which prompted buyers to replace it with soyoil, said B.V. Mehta, executive director of the Solvent Extractors' Association of India. "Soyoil was cheap and plenty in stock, so it ended up grabbing palm oil's market share," he said. Crude palm oil was commanding a premium of as high as $150 per ton over crude soyoil earlier this year due to tight supplies of the tropical oil in producer countries Malaysia and Indonesia. Indian consumers are price-sensitive and had relied on palm oil because it was cheap. But its price rally prompted even large industrial buyers to look for alternatives, said Aashish Acharya, vice president at Patanjali Foods Ltd, a leading importer of edible oils. While soyoil was initially being bought as a substitute for palm oil, it is now also replacing rapeseed oil, which has become more expensive due to a price rally in the past two months, said a Mumbai-based dealer with a global trade house. India buys palm oil mainly from Indonesia and Malaysia, while it typically imports soyoil and sunflower oil from Argentina, Brazil, Russia and Ukraine. This year, however, India is likely to buy more than 600,000 tons of soyoil from Nepal, a New Delhi-based dealer said. Soyoil shipments from Nepal are tax-free under the South Asian Free Trade Agreement, which is encouraging buyers from eastern India to source soyoil from the Himalayan country, he added.
Zawya
3 hours ago
- Zawya
Currency markets brace for US inflation data
Currency markets were in a holding pattern on Tuesday ahead of U.S. inflation data - important for Federal Reserve policy expectations - with traders' caution capping the pound's gains after UK jobs data and the Australian dollar's losses. A moderate reading on U.S. price pressures could cement bets for a Fed rate reduction next month, which increased after last week's soft payrolls data. But if signs emerge that U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs are stoking inflation, that could pressure the central bank to stay on hold, though the bar for that is higher. That in turn would fuel further tensions with Trump, who has urged the Fed to cut rates. Economists polled by Reuters expect core CPI to have risen 0.3% in July, pushing the annual rate higher to 3%, and traders currently put the odds of a quarter-point rate cut on September 17 at about 89%, and are fully pricing two such cuts by year end. "The $1 million question for the market (is) does CPI today matter for the Fed in September and beyond," said Kenneth Broux, head of corporate research FX and rates at Societe Generale. He said given market pricing, "it's a big ask for today's CPI and the one next month to challenge the dovish set-up". Ahead of the data, due at 1230 GMT, the dollar was up 0.2% against the yen at 148.43, while the euro was marginally softer at $1.1609. Sterling was among the bigger movers, up 0.2% on the dollar at $1.3460 after data that showed Britain's jobs market weakened further, albeit more slowly, while wage growth stayed strong - the latter underscoring why the Bank of England is so cautious about cutting interest rates. The numbers ought not to cause the Bank of England to accelerate the speed of its rate cuts. The BoE cut rates only last week in a tight 5-4 vote. Sanjay Raja, chief UK economist at Deutsche Bank, said there were "marginal positives" in the data and there was nothing to suggest labour market loosening was accelerating, but he added "we aren't out of the woods yet". He expects the BoE to continue loosening policy gradually. The Australian dollar fetched $0.6493, down 0.3%, after the Reserve Bank of Australia's widely-expected decision to cut rates by a quarter point. The central bank cited a slowdown in inflation and a looser labour market, though it was cautious on prospects for further easing. "We remain of the view that a follow-up cut in November is more likely than not, with the cash rate to then stay at 3.35% for an extended period," said Adam Boyton, head of Australian economics at ANZ, in a note. Currency markets largely ignored Trump's decision to extend a pause in sharply higher tariffs on Chinese imports for another 90 days, as widely expected. With the U.S. and China seeking to strike a deal averting triple-digit import tariffs, a U.S. official told Reuters that chip makers Nvidia and AMD had agreed to allocate 15% of China sales revenues to the U.S. government, aiming to secure export licences for semiconductors. China's yuan was flat at 7.195 per dollar in offshore trading. Cryptocurrency bitcoin was flat around $118,400, after climbing as high as $122,308.25 on Monday, taking it close to the all-time peak of $123,153.22 from mid-July. (Reporting by Kevin Buckland in Tokyo and Alun John in London; Editing by Kim Coghill, Mark Potter and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
Al Etihad
5 hours ago
- Al Etihad
Norway sovereign fund, world's largest, expects to sell more Israeli stocks over Gaza, West Bank
12 Aug 2025 14:12 ARENDAL (Reuters) Norway's $2 trillion wealth fund, the world's largest, said on Tuesday it expects to divest from more Israeli companies as part of its ongoing review of investments in the country over the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. The fund announced on Monday it was terminating contracts with all three of its external asset managers who handled some of its Israeli investments and has divested parts of its portfolio in the country over the worsening humanitarian crisis in review began last week following media reports that the fund had built a stake of just over 2% in an Israeli jet engine group that provides services to Israel's armed forces, including the maintenance of fighter stake in the company, Bet Shemesh Engines Ltd (BSEL) , has now been sold, the fund announced on Tuesday. Bet Shemesh did not respond to requests for Bank Investment Management (NBIM), an arm of Norway's central bank, which held stakes in 61 Israeli companies as of June 30, in recent days divested stakes in 11 firms, including BSEL. It did not name the other fund is now taking a closer look at the remaining 50 Israeli companies in the portfolio and will report back to the finance ministry by an August 20 deadline."There is good reason to believe that there will be further sell-outs," Deputy CEO Trond Grande told Reuters, without saying how many companies could be affected. ELECTIONNorway faces a general election on September 8 and multiple politicians have called on Tangen to resign in light of the Israeli investments. He ruled out stepping down, saying he had carried out the fund's mandate, as decided by parliament."I haven't even thought about it," he said in an interview. "We (at the fund) have not made any kind of formal mistakes. We have ended up in a situation that has been unfortunate, but we are executing on the mandate."The fund, which invests the Norwegian state's revenues from oil and gas production, owns on average 1.5% of all listed stocks worldwide. It also invests in bonds, real estate and renewable energy projects. Separately, parliament's constitutional and control committee was meeting on Tuesday to discuss what to ask Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg regarding the fund's Israeli investments. It is expected Stoltenberg will have a week to answer the questions, public broadcaster NRK non-Israeli companies with business in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the fund would continue to monitor the ethical risk they may pose and grade them in different risk categories, Grande said. That work would be done with the fund's ethical watchdog, the Council on Ethics, which makes recommendations for divestments if the companies are deemed to breach ethical guidelines set by the Norwegian parliament.
