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Egypt’s foreign debts highest since revolution

March 31, 2017 at 1:50 pm

National Bank of Egypt in Cario [Daniel Mayer/Wikipedia]

The Egyptian Central Bank admitted Egypt’s foreign debt increased by almost $3.7 billion by the end of December. This is a $19.5 billion increase during 2016 alone, the largest annual increase since the January Revolution.

The statement issued by the bank yesterday stated that “according to the bank’s monthly report for February, the foreign debt proportion reached 37.6 per cent of the GDP by the end of 2016, compared to 13.6 per cent at the end of 2015.”

Read: Egypt to borrow $9bn next financial year

Foreign debt increased during the first half of the current fiscal year (2016-2017) by $11.5 billion, or 20.6 per cent, of which $7.2 billion was in the second quarter of the year. This is the largest growth rate in foreign debt over a year and a half, according to analysis published by the pro-coup website Masrawy.

In its report, the bank attributed the increase in foreign debt during the first half of this fiscal year as being the result of a net increase of the used loans and advances by nearly $13 billion, and the fall in exchange rates for most of the currencies borrowed against the US dollar. This decline amounted to about $1.4 billion.