President of Egypt Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced that Egyptian banks will cover every dollar requirement to release all goods piled up in the country’s ports, resulting from the scarcity of hard currency since the beginning of the year.
The spokesman for the Egyptian Cabinet said in a statement that goods worth $5 billion have been released in the 23 days since the beginning of December, from total goods worth $14.5 billion accumulated in ports several months ago.
Sisi’s remarks came during the inauguration of two factories for the production of medical and industrial gases and a triple power plant at the chemical industries complex in Abu Rawash, Giza Governorate.
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The Egyptian government, in cooperation with the banking sector, has developed a plan to release the remaining goods, worth $9.5 billion, in the short term, according to the statement.
Authorities are focusing, as a priority, on the release of food commodities, food processing ingredients, medicines, and production requirements.
In addition, the Central Bank of Egypt announced that it has monitored a group of illegal practices related to the foreign exchange market, which aim to destabilize the monetary and financial stability of the country in violation of the provisions of the law, as well as trying to achieve quick profits illegally, stressing that these abuses are continuously tracked and monitored to take the necessary legal measures against them.
The Central Bank also issued strict instructions to banks to set sufficient limits to meet the actual needs of customers of foreign exchange, especially for the purposes of education and treatment via cards, while maintaining the previous limits for customers abroad before the issuance of the new controls on December 22, 2022, as well as not to adhere to any limits on the cards of customers who have foreign currency accounts, and their usage is paid in the same currency.
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