Cairo – Mubasher: Total foreign holdings of Egypt’s sovereign debt reached below $19 billion now, Egyptian finance minister said.

The current situation in Egypt is not suitable to tap the international debt markets, Mohammed Maait told Enterprise.

However, we will keep an eye on the overseas markets before taking any decision, he added.

A government source said last week that the government had succeeded in reaching a new $2 billion loan agreement with the World Bank to finance Egypt’s economic reform programme.

It is worth noting that outflows of the Egyptian debt instruments have risen to an all-time high in a year over the past week to a range between $4 billion and $5 billion amid a global selling wave in the emerging markets.

The finance minister has indicated that the government aims to obtain long-term soft loans from financial institutions in a bid to plug part of the funding gap this year.