The new governor has not yet been announced.

The action comes a day before the meeting of the CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), scheduled on Thursday, to review the key interest rates amid the ongoing global economic challenges.

It also comes few days after a cabinet reshuffle took place on Saturday bringing in 13 fresh ministers.

“I would like to thank President El-Sisi for supporting me throughout my term as the governor of the CBE. I resigned to leave room for new blood to take responsibility and push forward Egypt’s successful development process under the leadership of the president,” Amer noted in his resignation note.

Amer has chaired the CBE since November 2015, succeeding Hisham Ramez who also voluntarily left his position.

In November 2019, the House of Representatives approved the president's decision to extend Amer’s term for four more years, until 2023.

Amer, who is also Egypt’s governor at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), was also anticipated to chair the annual fall meetings of the World Bank and the IMF scheduled in October.

The resignation comes as Egypt is still in negotiations with the IMF, which have ongoing since March, to secure a fresh loan for the sake of supporting the national economy amid the repercussions of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the global inflationary wave and the shortage of hard currency in the local market.

Amer said in May that Egypt is expected to secure a limited loan from the IMF as the country, which obtained over $20 billion from the fund since 2016, went beyond its quota.

In this regard Amer explained that further borrowing will be subjected to exceptional access criteria that will require the country to follow more stringent conditions.

Before chairing the CBE, Amer served as the bank’s deputy governor from 2003 to 2008 and headed the National Bank of Egypt from 2008 to 2013.

As Egypt’s governor at the IMF, Amer played a notable role in terms of the state’s IMF-backed economic reform programme in its first wave (November 2016-July 2019), through which Egypt had secured a $12 billion from the fund.

In this respect, the CBE, which is responsible for the country’s monetary policy, fully floated the Egyptian pound for the first time in years with raising the interest rates by an unprecedented three percent (300 basic points) upon the requirements of the programme deal signed with the IMF under its Extended Fund Facility. The action aimed to combat the black market and limit currency exchange through the banking system only.

Amer took the same action in response to the repercussions of Ukraine war. Since March, the CBE hiked the interest rates by a total of three percent (300 bps) and devaluated the Egyptian pound by over 17 percent.

This comes amid elevating inflation in the country that has risen to double digits since March, exceeding the seven percent (± two percent) through the fourth quarter of 2022.

Egypt’s headline annual inflation accelerated to 14.6 percent in July – more than double the corresponding month in 2021 – up from 13.2 percent in June, while urban annual inflation also rose to 13.6 percent, the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistic (CAPMAS) said in August.