Holdings of Egyptian T-bills total $60.4 bln in April: CBE

Ahram Online , Thursday 13 Jul 2023

Egypt's total outstanding treasury bills (T-bills) have declined by 4.84 percent to EGP 1.866 trillion ($60.38 billion) in April 2023, from EGP 1.96 trillion ($63.43 billion) in March, according to data released by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE).

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The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) headquarters, Cairo, Egypt. AP

 

Outstanding T-bill balances represent the total amount of Treasury bills issued by the government which have not yet matured or been redeemed. T-bills are short-term government debt obligations with maturities of one year or less.

The total value of Egyptian T-bills held by foreign customers rose to EGP 392.5 billion in April, up from EGP 379.6 billion in March.

Meanwhile, T-bills held by private banks in Egypt declined to EGP 359.2 billion in April from EGP 388.7 billion the previous month.

Public sector banks' holdings of Egypt's T-bills totaled EGP 222.5 billion in April, down from EGP 245.7 billion in March.

The treasury bill outstanding balance tracks how much the government still owes to short-term bill holders, impacting short-term borrowing costs, liquidity conditions and monetary policy.

Egypt is currently experiencing a financing gap of $17 billion set to last through 2026, according to estimates from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The country is working on filling the gap mainly through the sale of state-owned enterprises, as well as through assistance from international financial institutions.

Egypt’s foreign debt jumped to $162.9 billion during the first half of the fiscal year 2022/2023, compared to $155.7 billion at the end of the previous fiscal year, according to CBE data.

According to recent reports, Egypt's budget deficit rose to over EGP 367 billion (nearly $12 billion) in the first half of FY2022/2023 (July-December 2022), accounting for around four percent of GDP.

Egypt's sovereign US-dollar-denominated bonds saw a slight increase in returns on international markets, rising over 1 percent, due to growing demand for bonds from frontier markets such as Pakistan and Ghana, as reported from Tradeweb via Reuters.

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