Egypt’s Finance Minister Mohamed Maeet announced on Tuesday that the exchange rate of the customs dollar will continue to be fixed at the current rate of LE16, in the month between August 1 and 31, 2018.
The Finance Minister mentioned that the exchange rate of the customs dollar is around 90% of the US dollar exchange rate prevailing in the banking market.
The Finance Ministry announced on July 1 that it would continue its fixation of the customs dollar exchange rate at LE16 until July 31.
The exchange rate of the pound to the dollar rapidly increased in 2016-2017 following efforts to comply with International Monetary Fund’s regulations, through stringent economic reforms. In a statement on the IMF website, the organization called this inflation “anticipated”, as it “reflected the effects of increases in electricity and fuel prices, the VAT, and pass-through from the exchange rate depreciation”.
The statement notes that “inflation has been on a declining trajectory since its peak last summer”, with annual headline inflation declining from 33 percent in mid-2017 to roughly 11 percent in May, “anchored by interest rate hikes and other well-considered measures taken by the Central Bank Egypt (CBE)”.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
