Egypt’s revenues from tourism rose by 45.5% during the period from July to September in the current fiscal year (FY), according to Central Bank of Egypt’s (CBE) Balance of Payments Performance (BOP) report.
The report explained that the receipts (revenues) of tourism reached $3.93bn during the first three months of the current FY compared to $2.7bn during the same period last month.
On the other hand, the report stated that the payments of tourism during the first three months of FY 2018/19 accounted to $717m, up from $649m during the same period last year, an increase of 10.47%.
Notably, before the 2011 uprising, tourism in 2010 was growing briskly, but then after the 2011 uprising, tourism suffered significantly, subsequently suffering the most in 2016, especially when a Russian passenger plane crashed in Sinai in late October 2015 will all its onboard passengers killed.
But currently the tourism is recovering, demonstrating that earlier the Minister of Tourism, Rania Al-Mashat, said that the number of tourists to Egypt increased by 40% during the first nine months of 2018, compared to the same period last year, recovering from a slump that began with the Arab Spring and continued as unrest persisted.
Al-Mashat previously ensured that the government plans to use this improvement in tourism to encourage investments in the Red Sea islands, as well as in a new private equity fund to upgrade Egyptian hotels.
The minister insisted that the government is trying to diversify its tourist base, targeting travellers from Asia and Latin America.
Regarding Egypt’s BOP, it continued to achieve an overall surplus, accounting for $284.1m in the period from July to September of FY 2018/19, as the current account deficit stabilised at $1.8bn and the capital and financial account stood at $1.6 bn.
This means that the BOP remained steady despite emerging markets’ turbulence, normalisation of developed markets monetary policy, and the resulting narrowing of global conditions.
The services balance and workers’ remittances are the key drivers of stability in the current account, as the services surplus surged by 50.4%, to register $4.3bn, up from $2.8bn, driven mainly by the following developments, travel balance surplus increased to $3.2bn, up from $2bn.
Meanwhile, Suez Canal receipts rose by 4.3%, recording $1.44bn up from $1.38bn.
Furthermore, the net unrequited current transfers scaled up by 1.4% to reach $5.9bn, up from $5.8bn, supported mainly by the increase in workers’ remittances.
