Egypt’s foreign currency reserves inched up in March to reach $16.561 billion from $16.53 billion the previous month, the central bank said on its website on Monday.

Egypt's reserves stood at $36 billion in 2010 before the 2011 uprising drove away tourists and investors, the country's main sources of the hard currency.

The central bank will repay $800 million to the Paris Club and the remaining $1 billion it owes to Qatar next July, said the bank's governor Tarek Amer last month.