The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) provided banks operating in the Egyptian market with $120m on Tuesday, through the regular weekly tender in which the CBE sells dollars to banks.
The CBE called banks to cover their customers’ requests with the US dollars they obtained from the weekly tender, according to the assistant general manager of the financial sector at a private bank operating in Egypt, Osama El-Menilawy.
He added that the tender of Tuesday will only cover the import requests of pharmaceutical products, medicines manufacturing components, vaccines, chemicals related to drugs, and baby milk.
The CBE provided the US dollar at a price of EGP 8.78, which is the same level for the US dollar price in March 2016. Banks are to sell it to customers at a price of EGP 8.88.
The CBE cancelled the quota system again. The quota system allows the banks to obtain specific shares of the dollars that are sold through the weekly tender by the CBE.
The CBE collected the banks requests for dollars, then provided specific amounts to them.
The CBE often cancels the quota system when it wants to direct the provided dollar liquidity to banks to cover the import of certain goods, or when it wants to direct the dollars to specific banks.
