Foreign investments in Egyptian bonds exceed $25B

CAIRO – 10 February 2021: The total foreign investment in Egyptian bonds exceeds $ 25 billion, explaining that this number increases and decreases, and foreigners can invest in debt instruments through local intermediaries, Finance Minister Mohamed Maait stated

The minister emphasized that the budget for the current year 2020/2021 has a growth in public expenditures by about 9 percent, and a growth in tax revenues by about 13 percent.

The budget for the next fiscal year aims in addition to achieving a primary surplus of up to 2% as a percentage of the gross domestic product as well as reducing the total deficit of the budget amounted to 6.3 percent of the GDP, compared to 7.5 percent of the GDP in the fiscal year, according to Maait.

“Egypt does not intend to offer more international bonds before the end of the current fiscal year on June 30th ,” Maait stated.

Maait commented on Egypt's resorting to foreign debt instruments at the present time, in TV interview, saying: "We found a good opportunity at a low cost and a long term that provided access to debt instruments in hard currency, which would help improve the debt structure."

Egypt, represented by the Ministry of Finance, succeeded in implementing the issuance of international bonds worth $ 3.75 billion in 3 tranches (5, 10 and 40 years), with issued values ​​of $ 750 million, $ 1.5 billion, and $ 1.5 billion, respectively.

The general budget for the current fiscal year grants the Ministry of Finance the right to offer debt instruments amounting to $ 7 billion on the international market to cover the deficit.

On Tuesday, the Egyptian Ministry of Finance confirmed that the $ 3.75 billion international bond offering, which Egypt implemented this February, witnessed strong and increasing purchase orders for foreign investors.

According to the statement, the volume of subscription requests by foreign investors for those bonds amounted to $16.5 billion during the offering, before the banks promoting the offering, in accordance with the instructions of the Ministry of Finance, to announce the reduction of the indicative returns prices announced on the bonds at the beginning of the offering, as a result of strong purchase orders from a large number of large investors.

In a statement by the ministry, the minister said that public debt interest payments are expected to witness a decline in the coming period, as a result of the large cuts in interest rates during the last period, adding that it is intended to continue increasing the terms of public debt to reach 3.8 years by the end of next June.

Maait added that the ministry is pursuing a medium-term strategy to structure public debt, increase its average terms, and improve the level of financial sustainability, as the average lifetime of the debt actually increased from 1.3 years in June 2013 to 3.2 years by the end of June 2020.

The Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) decided Thursday, Feb. 4, to keep the overnight deposit rate, overnight lending rate, and the rate of the main operation unchanged at 8.25 percent, 9.25 percent, and 8.75 percent, respectively. Moreover, the discount rate was also kept at 8.75 percent.