National Bank of Egypt (Photo:Ahram)
Remittances from Egyptian expats in 2014 are up 22.2 percent so far as compared to the previous year, Al-Ahram's Arabic news website reported on Thursday.
Al-Ahram reported that this year's remittances are worth some $22 billion compared to $18 billion last year, said Zeinab Hashem, head of the treasury department at the country's biggest bank, National Bank of Egypt (NBE).
According to the Egyptian Central Bank's statistics, the state saw $4.3 billion in remittances in the second quarter of the current fiscal year (which ends in June) 2013/14, up from $4.1 billion in the previous quarter.
In 2012, Egypt came in sixth in the list of top recipients of remittances transferred to developing countries, according to the World Bank
Meanwhile, Hashem pointed out that the NBE's portfolio for loans for small and medium enterprises has swollen to reach LE12 billion ($1.6 billion) in 2014, against LE4 billion ($0.5 billion) in 2004.
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