Foreign international reserves dropped by $449 million in November the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) announced.
Net international reserves (NIR) dropped to $15 billion by the end of November.
Reserves of gold remained steady at $3.3 billion since the last adjustment in June, while special drawing rights fell slightly from $1.259 billion to $1.257 billion. Foreign currencies dwindled the most, dropping from $10.86 billion to $10.41 billion.
NIR had risen at the end of October after the second instalment of $500 million of the promised $2 billion Qatari loan was received.
The first tranche of the loan in August had given the reserves their biggest boost since the 25 January revolution. During this month, net reserves rose by $705 million to $15.1 billion, according to CBE data.
In July, NIR plunged due the repayment of a €1 billion bond and $606.5 million trimester payment of Egypt’s external debt to the Paris Club member countries.
In June the reserves witnessed a slight increase of only $19 million despite the fall in foreign currencies from $11.468 billion to $10.926 billion. The gain was a result of a revaluation of gold reserves at the end of the 2011/2012 fiscal year, pushing its value from $2.7 billion to $3.3 billion.
On the eve of the revolution, reserves stood at $36.1 billion. They lost $1 billion in January 2011 and $1.7 billion in February and kept dwindling in until March. By then they had lost approximately 58 per cent of their value.
Egyptian foreign reserves are composed of convertible foreign currencies (the main bulk of the reserves) divided into securities and currency deposits at different banks, gold deposits, IMF reserve position, financial derivatives and special drawing rights.
