Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) Governor Hisham Ramez said that, with the last payment of Qatar’s deposit, Egypt will have paid US$6 billion back to Doha since June 2013, pointing out that the last batch of the deposit is $500 million to be paid at the beginning of 2015, according to Egypt Independent website.
“The payment will not affect our reserves or the foreign exchange market,” Ramez said, adding that Qatar did not request to extend the deposit after the Saudi monarch mediated for reconciliation between Egypt and Qatar, which Egypt has welcomed.
He also said on the sidelines of the annual conference of the Union of Arab Banks in Beirut that the Finance Ministry will automatically pay the first quarter interests of the Suez Canal investment certificates to buyers in early December, but did not say how much they amount to.
He said the central bank is taking new measures to control the dollar black market, but did not disclose the nature of these measures. “They will not be police measures,” he assured.
He attributed the rise in the dollar exchange rate against the pound in recent days to an increasing demand from importers, traders and speculators who take advantage of announced dates of repayments of external obligations by the government in order to raise the rate in the black market.