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IMF says Egypt to deal with reserve bank overdrafts, off-budget activity

Egypt has actually dedicated to addressing its recourse to central bank overdraft facilities and offbudget public sector activity, practices that have added to pressure on the currency and the currency exchange rate, the IMF stated in a personnel report released on Friday.

The report, launched 4 weeks after the International Monetary Fund's board authorized an $8 billion financial support program, said Egypt had likewise dedicated to dealing with vulnerabilities such as reserve bank lending to public agencies.

Egypt had actually currently taken actions to tighten up financial policy, to shift to a flexible currency exchange rate program and a liberalised exchange system and to increase gasoline and fuel rates to catch up for missed out on modifications because December 2022, the report stated.

A preliminary $3 billion support programme was put into abeyance in 2015 following a series of policy slippages.

The go back to a fixed exchange rate in February 2023 weakened the preliminary credibility boost from the statement of a shift to a versatile program and hindered the execution of other program pillars such as divestment of state-owned properties, the staff report said.

It likewise led to foreign exchange scarcities, a big spread in the parallel market, and constrained imports, all of which fuelled inflation and weighed on development.

Delays in raising the policy interest rate in reaction to higher-than-expected inflation led to continued negative real rates and monetary repression, the report said.

Continued financial investment in nationwide jobs at a pace inconsistent with macroeconomic stability contributed considerably to forex and inflation pressures, it included.

The central bank quickly expanded its net domestic properties from mid-2022 to early 2024 to lend to public firms without going through the Ministry of Financing, the report said. More recently it had actually greatly increased the Ministry of Finance's use of the overdraft center.

These contributed to the inflation and currency exchange rate pressures of the past two years, it said.

The currency has slid to 47.85 Egyptian pounds to the dollar from 15.74 pounds in March 2022. Inflation climbed to a record yearly 38% in September before slipping to 33.3% in March.

got parts of the report through an informal channel previously today.

Egyptian authorities had actually devoted to limiting the federal government's overdraft account at the central bank and to avoid even more central bank lending to public firms outside the finance ministry, the report said.

Egypt's central bank since February 2023 had actually lent as much as 765 billion Egyptian pounds ($ 15.9 billion) to state companies other than the finance ministry, an obvious breach of a 2020 central bank law, it said.

The March 29 IMF board conference that authorized the expansion of the loan program mentioned damage to the economy from the crisis in Gaza. Weeks previously, Egypt struck a record $35 billion investment deal with the United Arab Emirates that reduced a. foreign currency shortage.