Cairo – Mubasher: The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) said on Monday it would apply a more flexible exchange-rate regime for curbing the black market.
The new policy aims to fix the disorders of the exchange rate system and apply a regime reflecting the supply and demand mechanisms by effectively and sustainably exchanging foreign currencies through official channel, CBE added.
The central bank also seeks to attract funds and investments for development projects in the country and to enhance its liquidity levels, maintaining Egypt’s position among countries with highly-efficient and transparent FX currency markets.
The central bank devaluated today Egypt’s local currency in an exceptional auction for selling $200 million, which prompted banks to depreciate the pound exchange rates to 8.90 per dollar for buying and 8.95 for selling.
CBE’s latest measures will soon reflect the true value of the Egyptian pound, more importantly increasing forex reserve, the bank said.
Earlier, the central bank said it targeted to increase foreign-exchange reserve to EGP 25 billion by the end of 2016.
