By: Mostafa Adel

Cairo – Mubasher: Foreign investments in the Egyptian government's debt instruments rose to $4 billion between November 2016 to date, said deputy finance minister for fiscal policies on Tuesday.

Speaking at the Government Business Dialogue Conference 2017, Ahmed Kouchouk said that foreign net investments increased 39% in the first half of the country's fiscal year.

On 3 November 2016, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) decided to float the local currency against foreign ones and left pricing to banks in accordance with the supply and demand mechanism.

The US dollar currently trades above EGP 18, compared to the pre-decision pegged price of EGP 8.88.

Earlier in March, the CBE released a report indicating that foreign investments in Egypt's treasury bills (T-bills) had increased in the second quarter of the fiscal year 2016/2017.

Foreigners purchased $631.7 million in T-bills in the quarter ended 31 December 2016.

The Egyptian government's debt issuances increased 10% to EGP 1.136 trillion in 2016, compared to EGP 1.022 trillion in 2015.

Translated by: Nada Adel Sobhi