11:44 AM Tuesday, February 13, 2024
Written by: Manal Al-Masry
The price of the dollar stabilized in the parallel market – the black market for currency trade – against the pound in the middle of this week’s trading today, Tuesday, at the same trading level as yesterday, after the state of panic among speculators subsided regarding the Central Bank’s return to devaluing the pound soon, according to what one of the observers said to whom “Masrawy” spoke to. “
According to the observer, the price of the dollar in the parallel market during the morning of today’s trading recorded 63 pounds per dollar, rising from the level of 54 and 55 pounds during the trading of the Sunday before last.
The black market suffered huge losses on Sunday before last, after the dollar suddenly fell by about 19 pounds, falling from its record level of 73 pounds, before it began to reduce its losses and gradually rise until it reached 63 pounds today.
The gap between the parallel and official prices still exceeds 100%, as it is trading within the banking sector near 31 pounds even during today’s transactions, which is a fixed price since last March.
The dollar returned to its rise on the black market after the major manipulators absorbed the shock of the Central Bank raising the interest rate in its first meeting in 2024 last Thursday, and the International Monetary Fund’s announcement of the imminence of reaching an agreement with Egypt regarding the two postponed reviews, and the entry of investments amounting to about 22 billion dollars from the sale of land in the city. The head of wisdom.
The failure of the Central Bank to return to exchange rate flexibility in the expected rapid manner reduced speculators’ fears that Egypt would soon receive foreign exchange inflows from the International Monetary Fund or the presence of rapid inflows from foreign and Gulf investors.
Kristalina Georgieva, Director of the International Monetary Fund, said in press statements earlier this week that a flexible exchange rate for the pound is necessary to absorb the shock, explaining that the talk with Egypt is about a flexible exchange rate and not “floating.”
The price of the pound witnessed a reduction 3 times during the period from March 2022 to mid-last March, due to the foreign currency shortage crisis, which led to a rise in the price of the dollar by 96% during the aforementioned period, before Egypt returned to stabilizing the price of the currency in banks, which prompted the IMF to… Postponing the first and second reviews of the reform program.
