Tourism reaps flotation fruits, revenues triple in Q4

CAIRO – 15 August 2017: Egyptian tourism revenues roughly tripled in the fourth quarter (Q4) of fiscal year 2016/17 (ended June 30), recording $1.5 billion, compared to $510 million in the same period last year.

Further, remittances of workers abroad hiked nine percent to stand at $4.8 billion in Q4, and $17.4 billion for the whole fiscal year, marking annual increase of two percent, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) said Tuesday in an initial data obtained by Bloomberg.

The tourism revenues’ figures are justifiable as tourist flows to Egypt increased from January till June 2017 by 3.5 million tourists compared to 2.3 million tourists during the same period in 2016, according to the Ministry of Tourism statistics.

In the first nine months of FY2016/17, tourism revenues jumped 128.3 percent to record $1.3 billion, $550.5 million more than the previous year, the CBE said in a previous report.

Egypt's foreign reserves jumped by $4.73 billion in June to $36.04 billion, the Central Bank said on August 1, recording the highest level since the 2011 political uprising.

Foreign reserves in the CBE have been rising since the Egyptian government clinched a $12 billion three-year loan from the International Monetary Fund in November, after Egypt started implementing the economic reform measures by floating the Egyptian pound, which caused a breakthrough in exports, tourism and remittances.