The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) will remove the maximum dollar deposit limit over the few upcoming months, according to Chris Jarvis, head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) delegation to Egypt.
In a statement to Daily News Egypt, Jarvis said that he welcomes the bank’s decision to remove the constraints on the remittances of foreign exchange abroad.
Jarvis said that the IMF welcomes removing the $100,000 limit on remittances without the condition of having to use them to import basic goods, adding that the decision is in line with the flexible exchange rate system adopted by the CBE.
“The CBE’s policy also includes removing any remaining constraints, including the maximum dollar deposit limit. We understand that this will be implemented over the upcoming months,” he said.
The CBE announced on Wednesday that it will remove the limit on the remittances of $100,000 or its equivalent in foreign currency per customer once a year. The limit was applied to normal Egyptian individuals and companies.
The decision is part of a series of reforms implemented by the CBE within the economic reform plan that started in 2016 and aims to enhance confidence in the Egyptian economy, according to Tarek Amer, the governor of the CBE.
In 2015, the CBE imposed strict limits on dollar deposits to discourage demand on the dollar in the black market, and it also imposed $50,000 as a limit for maximum monthly depositing; however, a large part of these constraints were removed by March 2016.
The bank still keeps the maximum limit for individuals who work in importing products and non-basic goods at $10,000 daily, $50,000 monthly for depositing, and $30,000 for withdrawal.
The head of the IMF has not specified a date for the IMF executive board to vote on the first review done by the delegation for Egypt. However, he expected this to be done within the few upcoming weeks.
The government is awaiting the fund to provide $1.25bn during the upcoming weeks, representing the second portion of the $12bn loan agreed in 2016, after the fund’s delegation carried out the first review of the Egyptian economic programme in May.
The delegation said in May that it will pass its report about the first phase of the reforms carried out by the government to the executive board to vote on it.
