Central Bank of Egypt sold US$37.8mn in FX and offered EGP 7bn in T-bills..

Cairo, Egypt (Capital Markets in Africa) — The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) reported that US$37.8 million was sold to banks out of the US$40 million on offered in a foreign currency auction held today. The Egyptian pound remained unchanged at cut-off price of 7.73 against the dollar. However, the CBE allowed the Egyptian pound to depreciate by EGP 0.20 from 7.53 against the greenback in July.

In addition, the CBE announced on Sunday issuing treasury bills worth EGP 7 billion, on behalf of the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to finance the budget deficit.  

The first tranche of the T-bills amounts to EGP 2.5 billion, due in 91 days, while the second tranche which totals EGP 4.5 billion is due in 266 days.

According to the monthly report issued by the MoF revealed a budget deficit of EGP 261.8 billion, accounting for 10.8 percent of GDP during the eleven-month period starting July 2014 and ending May 2015, compared to 9.5% during the same period the year before.