By: Heba El-Kordy

Cairo – Mubasher: Gold reserves in Egypt continued its downward trend for the third month in a row, sliding by $456 million during the first quarter (Q1) of 2021 from $4.39 billion at the end of 2020, pressured by losses of the precious metal globally.

Egypt’s gold reserves declined by $206 million or 4.97% to $3.934 billion in March, hitting its lowest level since May 2020, compared to $4.14 billion in February, according to data released by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE).

Year-on-year (YoY), gold’s contribution to the country’s foreign reserves rose by 11.8% or $416 million from $3.518 billion in March 2020.

Globally, the precious metal experienced the worst quarterly losses since 2016, falling by $181 or 9.6% in the January-March period due to the rising yields on US Treasury notes and the appreciation of the US dollar.

On the other hand, the contribution of foreign currencies to Egypt’s international reserves grew to $40.344 billion at the end of March from $40.206 billion a month earlier.

YoY, the reserves of foreign currencies increased by $232 million from $40.112 billion in March 2020.

The CBE announced that Egypt’s net international reserves rose by $136 million to $4.033 billion at the end of last March.