Following their recovery from COVID-19’s harsh impacts, Egypt’s NIRs continue to be hit by the spillovers of the Russian-Ukrainian war sparked in late February.

Consequently, Egypt’s NIRs dropped in March to $37 billion, down from $40.9 billion in February.

“Global markets came under immense pressure due to the recent developments between Russia and Ukraine. Conflict between the two countries has caused massive sell-offs in Emerging Markets, and volatility in global asset prices,” the CBE said in March.

Describing their response, they added: “In the wake of the Russia/Ukraine crisis and in line with the CBE’s mandate to maintain price stability, the CBE decided to temporarily mobilise its excess foreign currency reserves to calm the markets during periods of exceptional stress caused by exogenous factors, similar to the actions that were taken during the emergence of the COVID pandemic,”

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expected Egypt’s tourism sector, one of the country’s key hard currency sources, to be the most affected by the war in Ukraine.

Yet, Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait predicted a marginal impact of the Ukrainian war on the tourism sector, projecting its revenues to reach between $10-12 billion in FY2021/2022 (July 2021-June 2022), up from $4.9 billion a year earlier.

Egypt has lost $20 billion in investments since the onset of the war in Ukraine, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said in May.