Egypt considers issuing int’l bonds in local currency

CAIRO – 28 August 2019: Ministry of Finance is reconsidering the issuance of bonds dominated in local currency in international markets, two government sources told Enterprise.

The sources pointed out that the ministry has not yet decided the size and timing of the planned offering, but they are likely to proceed with the process early 2020, depending on market conditions and investors' appetite for Egyptian debt instruments.

Egypt postponed the bond offering in 2018 after the emerging markets' crisis.

Egypt's external debt rose 9.9 percent in the first quarter of 2019, compared to $106.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018, and $96.6 billion at the end of 2018, according to the Central Bank's data.

In February, Egypt issued international bonds worth $4 billion in three categories that were five times oversubscribed, the Ministry of Finance announced.

The dollar-denominated bonds come with maturities of 5, 10 and 30 years in a sale and will be offered at high revenues, as the subscriptions exceeded $21.5 billion.

In October 2018, Minister of Finance Mohamed Ma’it launched a pan-Asian roadshow to promote its international bonds in the South Korean capital, Seoul. The promotion campaign continued in November in several important Asian markets, topped by Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China and Japan.