Planning Min. reviews reasons behind Egyptian Pound’s rise against Dollar

CAIRO – 20 February 2020: Price of the Egyptian pound has risen against the dollar by 10 percent over the past year, Minister of Planning and Economic Development Hala el-Saeed said.

Saeed added in a statement, Wednesday, that the exchange rate declined below levels of LE 16 to the dollar in December and continued to drop, reaching levels of LE 15.64 at the moment, which is due to several factors.

The Egyptian pound continues to rise against the US dollar, to reach levels of LE 15.59 for buying and LE 15.69 for selling, recording its highest value in three years.

She added that the forefront of these factors came in the increase of foreign investments in Egyptian treasury bills, which rose to $15.29 billion at the end of last September, in addition to the increase in the number of tourists and the stability of remittances of Egyptians abroad.

The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) said earlier that foreign currency reserves jumped by about $37 million in January to reach $45.456 billion.

Egyptian tourism revenues increased 6.7 percent year-on-year(YoY) during the first quarter of the current fiscal year, to $4.19 billion, compared to $3.93 billion during the same quarter of last fiscal year.

The Egyptian tourism revenues recorded its highest level historically during the last fiscal year, to record about $12.6 billion, compared to $9.8 billion during the prior fiscal year.