© Reuters.
Investing.com – The Egyptian currency began trading today, Monday, with a fresh decline in the official market, according to the exchange rate screen of Egypt’s private and domestic banks.
And at a time when the pound is falling by piastres, black market transactions are seeing the Egyptian currency drop more than £9, according to press reports, to hover around the £32-33 levels. per dollar, up from the official price of 24.7.
The Egyptian government criminalizes black market transactions or the informal foreign exchange market through a series of severe penalties to eliminate this phenomenon that harms the national economy.
The Egyptian markets are awaiting the meeting of the International Monetary Fund on December 16, which will see the final signing of the loan by the Fund, with the date set for the collection of the first tranche of 750 million dollars.
Coinciding with the Fund meeting is Egypt’s central bank’s interest rate meeting, which comes after the country’s inflation rates soared to more than 19%, amid expectations that a special meeting will be held sooner. than expected on December 22nd.
The Central Bank of Egypt surprised the markets with exceptional meetings in March and October of this year, and before the date set for the official meetings, and both meetings saw a liberalization of exchange rates.
official price
Data from private banks today revealed the dollar’s exchange rate against the pound rose three points, from levels of 24.65 pounds to the dollar, at the end of Sunday’s trading.
The dollar exchange rate rose to levels of 24.68 pounds per dollar in sales, and levels of 24.65 pounds per dollar, in the Gulf of Egypt, Al-Ahly Kuwaiti, Bank of Alexandria and Al-Ahly National Bank of Qatar.
In national banks, National Bank of Egypt and Banque Misr, the dollar rate rose to levels of 24.62 pounds per dollar for sales, and levels of 24.57 pounds per dollar for buys.
After the change in exchange rates, according to the Central Bank of Egypt, the price of the dollar rose to levels close to 24.6947 pounds per dollar in sales, and to levels close to 24.6181 pounds per dollar in buys.
Mixed items and prices
Earlier, Mohamed Maait, finance minister, confirmed in televised statements that the reported price of the dollar reaching 40 pounds is just a rumor that has no foundation of truth, and the Egyptian finance minister added that the rumors of the dollars reaching 40 pounds come from abroad and aim to hit the economic stability of Egypt.
The Ministry of Finance’s Media Observatory said that these fake pages and fake accounts on social networking sites attribute false statements to some Egyptian government officials who failed to make, including what they posted on a fake page of the Egyptian Tax Authority, from statements by the Minister of Finance, on the Egyptian pound.
Turning on the parallel market
Analysts say the pound has fallen enough according to their different fair value models, but the currency needs an adjustment period to resolve the hoarded imports problem and the return of Level 32 – 34 confidence as the black market suggests.
While the gap between the exchange rate of the currency in the official and unofficial market has widened, as the price of the dollar in the parallel market has reached 33 pounds, which puts further pressure on the Egyptian government ahead of the December International Monetary Fund meeting 16.
The price of the dollar on the black market fluctuated between £32 and £33, while its price in banks reached £24.60, despite the price of the US currency being sold on the black market over the past week for about £30 , and despite devaluing the pound twice this year in 2022, but Egypt still faces a shortage of foreign currency, according to Reuters.
Sterling before the third quotation
The violent declines of the pound began on the morning of 20 March 2022, falling from levels of 15.7 pounds per dollar to the current levels close to 24.65 pounds per dollar, to lose about 53% of its value after two quotations, and the Egyptian Center had taken a decision to liberalize exchange rates twice, once in March 2022 and once again in October 2022.
When first listed in March 2022, Goldman Sachs (NYSE:) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:) fixed the fair value of the pound sterling within a range of 23.5 pounds per dollar, at which time futures contracts on the pound were trading near levels of 24.7 pounds to the dollar.
Following the second listing, Standard Chartered Banks (NASDAQ:), HSBC and Golden Man Sachs expected the value of the pound to fluctuate between the £26 and £28 per dollar levels, and in contrast to those expectations, market prices parallel exchange rate at the highest levels of 32 pounds per dollar.
