Egypt books a ninth record reserve month on the weakest gain of the run

The Central Bank of Egypt published provisional September figures on Wednesday 7 October showing net international reserves at $57.3482 billion, up $133.7 million from $57.2145 billion at end-August and from $56.2939 billion at end-July. Arab News counted a ninth consecutive month of gains, with reserves up $7.81 billion, or 15.8 percent, on the $49.53 billion recorded in September 2025. The composition, which most wires buried, moved far more than the headline did: foreign-currency holdings rose to $39.292 billion from $33.649 billion a year earlier, gold to $17.456 billion from $15.843 billion, and special drawing rights to $602 million from $44 million. Economy Middle East reported currency holdings up $1.74 billion on the month, more than offsetting a decline in the value of the gold portfolio. Ahram, which is state-adjacent, wrote that reserves rose “by only $133.7 million in September”. The CBE attributes the run to remittances, which reached a record $47.3 billion in FY2025/2026, up 29.6 percent.

The print lands inside the closing window of the $8 billion IMF arrangement, which expires on 15 December 2026. Fund spokesperson Julie Kozack said on 1 October that two reviews are due between October and December; together the final Extended Fund Facility review and a third Resilience and Sustainability Facility review would make about $2.3 billion available, against SDR 5.4 billion (roughly $7.3 billion) disbursed so far. Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, in an interview with CNN Business Arabic reported on 4 October, said the economy can grow without a successor programme and that a home-grown plan with targets to 2045 is due by the end of October. He had said a version of this on 4 June: “The government does not see a need for a new programme with the IMF during the coming period.” The pound has slipped past 52 to the dollar.

Assessment: The number to interrogate is not the record but the gap between a $1.74 billion currency leg and a $134 million net gain, which implies a material gold writedown and tells you this month was revaluation, not inflow. Banking-sector net foreign assets jumped $2.78 billion in August to $31.2 billion, split $18.8 billion at the CBE and $12.4 billion at commercial banks; whether that is genuine accumulation or hot money parked in the banks is unresolved, and it conditions how durable the reserve run is. Separately, two year-to-date figures are circulating — $4.74 billion and almost $5.9 billion — and they do not reconcile. The programme’s structural leg, asset sales, is reported to have raised only about $520 million by July; that figure is single-sourced through an aggregator and has not been traced to the staff report, but if it holds, the Fund is about to sign off on a divestment agenda that did not happen.