President of the Agricultural Bank of Egypt (ABE) El Sayed El Kosayar said that Tarek Amer’s receiving of the best central bank governor award in the MENA region is also a tribute to the political leadership and the leadership of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE).
He explained that the political leadership supported Amer in the bold decisions he took, despite the difficult circumstances and challenges in Egypt, due to their strong belief of the importance of taking these difficult steps at that time, while the leadership played a major role in helping to achieve its objectives wisely.
El Kosayar attributed Amer’s winning of the award to taking a number of decisions with great boldness, a boldness that is familiar to him, in times of difficulty, and he had tremendous results witnessed by all the international financial institutions.
“The decision to liberalise the exchange rate was one of the most serious and bold decisions taken by Amer, as it directly eliminated the foreign currency black market completely and brought foreign exchange reserves to an unprecedented level, despite the repayment of all external commitments on time,” El Kosayar said.
He added that Amer also played an important role in negotiating with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the economic reform programme, in which Egypt succeeded in obtaining the $12bn loan.
El Kosayar went on to say that Amer also launched several important initiatives to support the Egyptian economy, led by the initiative to support and finance small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which was allocated EGP 200bn, the initiative to support the tourism sector, and the initiative of financial inclusion for the first time in the Egyptian market.
“Amer was also credited with supporting the ABE with all financial and technical strength to return it to its role in supporting Egyptian farmers and achieving rural development and financial inclusion,” said El Kosayar.
