The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) said foreign investments in treasury bills (T-Bills) increased by about EGP 5.03bn at the end of December, to about EGP 254.30bn, from EGP 249.26bn in November 2019.
Two days ago, Minister of Finance Mohamed Moeit revealed that foreigners’ contribution to government debt instruments increased to $22bn in December.
Before its recovery in 2019, Egypt lost about $10.8bn of foreign investments in T-Bills from April 2018 to December 2019, according to the CBE.
Emerging markets (EM) were exposed to a wave of foreign exit from investments in government debt instruments starting from April 2018 with the rise of the US dollar price, and the growing fears of the economies of these markets, especially after the crises of Turkey and Argentina, but the crisis slowed down in December, and then reflected positive flows since the beginning of this year.
Mohamed Abdel Aal, a banking expert and a board member of the Suez Canal Bank, expected indicators of foreign investments in government debt instruments to be more positive in the coming period, in light of the continued strong real return on them compared to other markets.
The CBE said that the total outstanding balances of T-Bills reached EGP 1.512trn in December against EGP 1.47trn in November 2019.
