The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) offers US$ 40 million to local banks on Thursday at its 46th FX auction and the 30th one since the appointment of Hisham Ramez as governor of CBE since last February.
This raises the value of dollars offered at FX auctions under the leadership of Ramez to US$ 1.24 billion. Ramez reduced the value of dollars offered at FX auctions as CBE was offering US$ 75 million, then US$ 50 million at two auctions and US$ 40 million at the latest auctions so as to ration the disbursement of foreign currency, while the market requires US$ 110 million on a daily basis as stated by Mahmoud Fayez, former manager of the Federation of Egyptian Banks (FEB).
The value of dollar surged EGP 0.44 to reach EGP 6.81 since the implementation of FX auction mechanism at the end of 2012, up from EGP 6.37. Then, the value of dollar began to fall against the Egyptian pound concurrently with the appointment of the new governor at the beginning of last February as the value of dollar dropped EGP 0.08 to register EGP 6.73 on the second day since Ramez assumed the responsibilities of the new position. However, it rose again to register EGP 6.88.
