After 5 months of the pound’s flotation, the informal market came back to the Egyptian currencies market with approximately EGP18 for buying and EGP18.20 for selling, varying by the amount of money traded.
The US dollar exchange rate to the pound exceeded EGP 17.5 on Wednesday, marking its highest level over the past two weeks.
The US dollar price kept its upwards movement to reach EGP 17.4053 to buy and EGP 17.5109 to sell at the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE).
Meanwhile, the price at banks ranged from EGP 17.55 and EGP 17.60 to buy, and EGP 17.65 and EGP 17.70 to sell.
The informal market is probably not going to leave the scene soon, because it remains a loyal friend to investors when the banking sector stops to provide them with enough foreign currency.
Mohamed Genedy, the head of the Investors Syndicate, stated that the informal market is actually still available currently due to a lack of providing foreign currencies to the investors in need.
He added that the investors and importers now have an appetite for importing, which coincides with the banking sector’s delay of responding to importers’ requests for foreign currency.
Genedy explained that the hiking price of foreign currencies is a natural thing for Egypt because of the huge gap between imports and exports, which will always increase Egypt’s need for foreign currency.
He stated that the gap of the trade balance is around $40bn even after implementing importing restrictions, which means that the prices would be always increasing because Egypt needs dollars.
