Egypt Daily News – Egypt’s Central Bank has recently announced a significant turnaround in its financial status, reporting a profit of approximately 22.834 billion pounds for the last fiscal year, marking its first profitable year in seven years.
This is a notable recovery compared to the previous year’s losses, which were around 86.28 billion pounds.
The fiscal year in Egypt operates from July 1 to June 30, and in November 2022, the Central Bank decided to stop supporting interest rates on various initiatives aimed at facilitating real estate financing for low- and middle-income citizens, as well as sectors like industry and tourism.
Following this, the financial support for these programs was transferred to the Ministry of Finance at the direction of Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly.
This change was influenced by the substantial losses faced by the Central Bank from subsidizing interest rates and was in line with recommendations from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concerning economic reforms.
Additionally, the IMF has outlined a strategy for government agencies in Egypt to gradually reduce their debt to the Central Bank by 100 billion pounds per year until it is completely paid off.
This approach is expected to positively impact the bank’s financial health. By the end of July, government agencies had already repaid 150 billion pounds of their outstanding debts to the Central Bank.
In terms of assets, the Central Bank’s total holdings have surged by 35%, increasing from 4.5 trillion pounds to approximately 6.1 trillion pounds, reflecting robust financial management.
Particularly noteworthy is the substantial growth in the bank’s gold reserves, which expanded by 90.6%, climbing to 454.92 billion pounds from about 238.6 billion pounds at the end of June 2023.
The last recorded profits for the Central Bank prior to this fiscal year were in the 2016-2017 fiscal year, when profits amounted to around 12.66 billion pounds.
