Egypt's central bank sold $74.9 million on Sunday to banks at a maiden foreign currency auction designed to slow the depletion of the country's foreign reserves, with a cut-off price for dollars of LE6.2425.
This represents a substantial weakening of the Egyptian pound, which was bid in the interbank market on Sunday at LE6.185 to the dollar. The bank had offered $75 million at the auction.
The central bank said the weighted average bid price at the auction was LE6.2526 to the dollar. On Saturday, the bank said reserves, which stood at about $15 billion at the end of November, had fallen to a critical level.
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