Tarek Amer, Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt has submitted his resignation, and it was accepted by President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi on Wednesday.
Until the time of print there was no announcement of a replacement for Amer, who has also been appointed as a presidential adviser.
Amer, who was appointed as CBE governor in November 2015, was expected to end his term in November 2023.
The new CBE governor will face a lot of difficult challenges, on top of which is good coordination between the fiscal and monetary policies, the exchange and interest rates, and controlling inflation.
These files also include negotiating with the International Monetary Fund over financial reforms, and solving importation problems, meeting the needs of production requirements, maintaining and increasing foreign exchange reserves, and fulfilling external obligations.
Several names are expected to be nominated to succeed Amer, most prominent of which is United Media Services Chairperson Hassan Abdalla, National Bank of Egypt Chairperson Hisham Okasha, Planning Minister Hala El Said, and International Cooperation Minister Rania Al Mashat.
Sources close to the matter have informed Daily News Egypt that Abdalla is the frontrunner to succeed Amer.
Abdalla was the president of the United Media Services, and before that he was the CEO and Vice President of the Arab African International Bank (AAIB).
Abdalla, born in August 1960, has a Bachelor of Business Administration from the American University in 1982, and a Master of Business Administration in 1992 from the same university.
He started his career at the AAIB in 1982, the first multinational bank in Egypt, and worked in several sectors, including money and futures markets.
Abdalla has served as board member of several entities, including the Institute of International Finance, the Emerging Markets Advisory Council (EMAC), the Central Bank of Egypt, the Egyptian Exchange, Ghabbour Auto, Coca-Cola, Endeavor Egypt, Telecom Egypt, and Orascom Construction.
Meanwhile, Okasha is the Chairperson of the country’s largest public lender, the National Bank of Egypt (NBE).
Okasha, has joined NBE as deputy chairperson responsible for the risk, operations, compliance, and audit functions in April 2008. Okasha’s banking career spans over 26 years.
Hala Helmy El-Said was appointed as Minister of Planning and Economic Development. She is also the Chairperson of the Sovereign Fund of Egypt (TSFE).
El-Said grew up entrenched in politics. Her father, Helmy El-Said, was appointed Minister of Electricity and the High Dam in 1970. In 2019, she was selected as chairperson of TSFE, in addition to her appointment as Minister of Planning in 2017.
Before resuming the responsibilities of her office, El-Said was the first elected Dean of Faculty of Economics & Political Science at Cairo University. She was also an assistant to Cairo University President for Research and External Relations and a member of the board of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE).
Rania Al Mashat is Egypt’s Minister of International Cooperation since December 2019, and previously served as the country’s first female Minister of Tourism. Prior to that, she was Advisor to the Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington DC. She specialised in central banking issues and designing monetary policy frameworks.
Her other former roles include serving as Sub-Governor for Monetary Policy at the Central Bank of Egypt, Senior Economist at the IMF, Deputy Project Director for the Institutional Reform and Informal Sector Centre at the University of Maryland, College Park, USA, and Adjunct Professor of Economics at the American University in Cairo (AUC).
