CAIRO (Reuters) -Egypt’s M2 money supply rose by 23.7% year-on-year in April, data from the central bank showed on Tuesday.
Egypt’s net foreign assets (NFAs) meanwhile dropped by 14.8 billion Egyptian pounds in April, marking a slowdown in the outflow of funds that began in October.
Money supply stood at 6.41 trillion pounds ($345.93 billion), up from 5.18 trillion pounds in the same month last year.
NFAs fell to a negative 234.4 billion pounds in April from a negative 219.4 billion a month earlier, their seventh month of declines. NFAs were a positive 186.3 billion pounds at the end of September 2021, central bank data showed.
NFAs fell by 169.7 billion in March, their biggest decline since the coronavirus crisis broke out in February 2020.
An outflow of foreign currency, triggered in part by investor unease following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, was among factors which prompted the central bank to devalue the pound by 14% on March 21.
NFAs represent banking system assets owed by non-residents minus liabilities. Changes in their size represent net transactions of the banking system with the foreign sector, including those of the central bank, according to the bank.
Any movement could represent changes in import or export flows, foreign portfolio outflows, repayment of foreign debt, changes in the flow of worker remittances or a slowdown in tourism, analysts said.
($1 = 18.5300 Egyptian pounds)
(Reporting by Moataz Mohamed and Patrick Werr; Writing by Nadine Awadalla; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Alison Williams)
