Abdalla made his comments during his participation in the first day of Egypt’s Economic Conference which kicked off on Sunday under the auspices of Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi who was also present.

Abdalla explained that since Egypt is a non-oil exporter there was no need to peg its local currency to the US dollar, adding that the CBE is aiming to change this concept.

The Egyptian pound has plunged to a record low against the US dollar in October, trading at 19.72 for selling and 19.62 for buying according to the CBE official exchange rate on Sunday.

The CBE chief explained, however, that the local currency has made several gains against other currencies such as the Turkish Lira and the British Pound.

Abdalla also noted that the CBE has finalised the forward contracts for the Egyptian pound, and that it is working on the hedge contracts for the local currencies as a tool to navigate the impacts of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict which affected the hard currency in the Egyptian market.

In his opening speech during the conference, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly pointed out that Egypt lost about $25 billion worth of foreign indirect investments in the local debt instruments (hot money) since the onset of the war in Ukraine.