Egypt: Central bank to offer $1.5bn worth of treasury bills

The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) yesterday announced that it would issue $1.560 billion of treasury bills for one year on Monday.

“The treasury bills’ maturity date is 17 November 2020,” CBE said on its official website.

CBE offers treasury bills and bonds to domestic and foreign financial institutions on behalf of Egypt’s Ministry of Finance.

Treasury bills are short-term debts issued by the government with maturity periods ranging from three to six months. They are usually issued by the state’s finance ministry through the central bank to local and foreign institutions. The offering aims to increase the country’s foreign exchange liquidity to meet the needs of the government, repaying its external debts, and maintaining its foreign reserves.

In October, Egypt’s foreign reserves of the Central Bank of Egypt rose by $129 million month-on-month, reaching $45.246 billion.

Egypt has been negotiating billions of dollars in loans from various lenders to help revive an economy battered by political upheaval since the 2011 revolution that ousted long term dictator Hosni Mubarak and the subsequent military coup which unseated the country’s first democratically elected civilian president. The country is also trying to ease a dollar shortage that has crippled import activity and hampered recovery.

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