The US dollar depreciated slightly against the Egyptian pound, on Monday, losing 4.14 piasters of its value against the local currency.
The US dollar recorded EGP 15.8422 to buy and EGP 15.9822 to sell at the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), compared to EGP 15.8836 to buy and EGP 15.9836 to sell on Sunday.
The US dollar prices recorded a decline of 3 piasters against the Egyptian pound during bank transactions on Monday. The American currency traded at EGP 15.85 to buy and EGP 15.95 to sell at the National Bank of Egypt (NBE).
The dollar prices have, since the beginning of August, witnessed a depreciation of about 10 piasters against the local currency.
On Monday, the cabinet’s media centre published a report highlighting the Egyptian pound’s continued position as one of the best emerging market currencies against the US dollar. The strength of the local currency has been driven by the improvement of foreign exchange sources, and continued its strong performance in 2019 before the onset of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis.
According to the report, The Economist has announced an expected improvement in the Egyptian pound’s performance against the dollar in the next five years. This is compared to pre-coronavirus levels, in which the dollar exchange rate reached EGP 16.82.
The local currency’s performance is expected to improve by 4.5%, bringing the US dollar to EGP 16.06 in 2020, and 4.3% to reach EGP 16.10 in 2021. It is expected to improve by 5.1% to reach EGP 15.97 in 2022, 5.8% to EGP 15.85 in 2023, before reaching 6.4% to EGP 15.74 in 2024.
The Economist had praised Egypt’s stability of net international reserves in June 2020, stressing that this has led to an improvement in the local currency’s performance against the dollar. The position of strength indicates that the restored confidence in the availability of hard currency will contribute to attracting foreign investors, especially with the onset of 2022.
The report highlighted Fitch’s indication that the Egyptian pound was among the best performing emerging market currencies until August of 2020. The local currency is expected to remain relatively stable until the end of the year, despite the sharp decline in emerging market currencies.
The report highlighted the rate of change in the performance of emerging market currencies against the US dollar in 2021, in which the Egyptian pound is expected to improve by 2.3% against the US dollar.
