Egypt Plans to Sell $5 Billion Bonds Overseas in Next Few Months

CAIRO (Capital Markets in Africa) – Egypt plans to issue international bonds worth about $5 billion in the coming months, Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said Wednesday.

“We don’t know the schedule yet, but we’re planning,” Maait told a gathering of business people in Cairo. “We are monitoring the interest rate, we are monitoring international markets.”

Maait said that the exact issue size had yet to be finalized and Egypt was still considering what currency to issue in.

He took the helm at the Finance Ministry in June, half way through a three-year $12 billion International Monetary Fund loan program secured after Egypt floated its currency. The flotation, along with a sharp increase in interest rates and fuel prices, helped stabilize the economy and restore investor confidence hit by the chaotic aftermath of the 2011 uprising.

An emerging-market rout has pushed up yields on Egyptian pound-denominated treasury bills in recent weeks, however, adding to the cost of servicing the country’s debt pile.

Maait has pledged to reduce the debt and said on Wednesday Egypt would not accept higher yields on treasury bills and bonds as long as it had alternative sources of funding from international lenders.

The Finance Ministry has canceled three treasury bond sales this month because rates offered were too high.

“We have alternatives,” he said.

Source: Bloomberg Business News