The dollar rate registered EGP 24 for buying and EGP 24.1 for selling, according to figures by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE).
The dollar rate also registered EGP 23.8 for buying and 23.9 for selling at the National Bank of Egypt (NBE), Banque Misr, and the Commercial International Bank (CIB), and recorded EGP 23.9 for buying and EGP 24 for selling at the Arab African International Bank (AAIB).
The pound dropped by about 14.5 percent on Thursday in conjunction with the $3 billion staff level agreement between Egypt and the IMF. The CBE announced on Thursday that it was adopting a more flexible exchange-rate regime as one of a host of new monetary policies.
Among its decisions, the CBE raised the key interest rates in an unscheduled meeting by 2 percent (200 bps) and said it would phase out letters of credit (LCs) for import finance by December of this year.
Including Thursday’s hike, the CBE has raised the key interest rates by an unprecedented total of 5 percent since the onset of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in February.
Egypt has been struggling with the impact of the Ukraine crisis over the past months, which has placed pressure on the currency, slowed down imports, and caused foreign reserves to drop from $40.994 billion in February to $33.198 billion by the end of September.
In a press conference on Thursday, Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt Hassan Abdalla said the IMF deal is part of the structural measures and policies Egypt has recently adopted under its new economic reform programme.
He added that the programme will enhance the country’s macroeconomic indicators and its ability to meet external obligations that were exacerbated as a result of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
The IMF’s $3 billion loan is part of a $9 billion finance scheme that is expected to include $1 billion from the IMF’s sustainability fund and $5 billion from the country’s development partners, Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait said during the presser.
The IMF has been cooperating with Egypt over the past decade and provided it with support to address financial, economic and social challenges.
Since the start of the government's implementation of the IMF-backed economic reform programme in 2016, Egypt has secured three loans from the fund, including a $12 billion loan to execute the first wave of reforms (November 2016 - July 2019) under the Extended Fund Facility.
This was followed by two separate loans amounting to $8 billion in 2020 to tackle the harsh impacts of the pandemic, under the IMF’s Rapid Finance Facility and Stand-By Arrangement.
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