Cairo – Mubasher: Receivables from fees paid by ships passing through the Suez Canal have fallen by 4.2% in the first nine months of the fiscal year 2016/2017, according to an official statement by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE).
Receivables amounted to $3.7 billion between July 2016 and March 2017, down from $3.9 billion in the year-ago period.
The CBE attributed the decline to lower net tonnage of transiting vessels by 1.7%, added to a drop in the value of a single special drawing rights (SDR) unit against the US dollar by 1.6%.
Egypt logged an overall surplus in its balance of payments of $11 billion in the first nine months of FY16/17 against a deficit of $3.66 billion in the same period of the year before.
The Suez Canal Authority is targeting revenues of EGP 66.1 billion ($3.6 billion) in the general budget for FY17/18.
The CBE said that the most populous Arab country had achieved a surplus of $11 billion in its balance of payments for the first nine months of FY16/17, against a deficit of about $3.6 billion during the same period last year.
