Egypt posts its highest reserves on record as Madbouly says no fourth IMF programme is needed

The Central Bank of Egypt published end-September reserve data on Wednesday 7 October: net international reserves of $57.3482bn, against $57.2145bn at end-August, a rise of $133.7m, or about 0.23%. The year-earlier figure was $49.536bn. Inside the stock, foreign currency holdings stand at $39.292bn against $33.649bn a year ago, gold at $17.456bn against $15.843bn, and SDRs at $602m against $44m. Gold is now 30.4% of the total. Of the $7.81bn year-on-year gain, roughly 72% is foreign currency, 21% gold — revaluation as much as accumulation — and 7% SDRs. The Central Bank also reports remittances of $47.3bn in FY2025/2026, up 29.6%, carried by Ahram Online and repeated in the State Information Service item on the reserve release.

Set against that, the Fund’s own August staff report (Country Report No. 26/224) records banks' net foreign assets falling from a January 2026 peak of $14.5bn to $5.8bn at end-March, recovering only to $7.7bn in May, a swing the Fund attributes to the war. The same report puts banks' exposure to the central government at 35% of assets as of end-2025, which it calls the second largest in the region. Egypt Independent, citing Central Bank data and not matched by a second carrier, reported banking-system net foreign assets of $31.2bn in August, described as the highest since 2020. The two series are not reconcilable from the public record as it stands.

Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly told CNN Business Arabic, in remarks reported by Egyptian media on Sunday 4 October, that Egypt does not need a new IMF programme once the current one ends, noting three Fund programmes since 2016 and saying ordinary Egyptians bore the heaviest burden of the reforms. The Files has not retrieved the Arabic original; the account reaching us runs through an aggregator summarising Egyptian media. The $8bn Extended Fund Facility expires on 15 December 2026, with SDR 5.4bn — about $7.3bn — disbursed to date. IMF spokesperson Julie Kozack is reported to have said on 1 October that two reviews remain, worth about $2.3bn; we have not seen the briefing transcript. Separately, The New Arab reported on 22 September that Cairo is negotiating the rollover or conversion of a $5.434bn Saudi deposit maturing in October.

Assessment: Three things to hold apart. A record reserve number is not the same as a strengthening external position when nearly a third of it is gold and the year’s gain owes a fifth to bullion. A prime minister saying no successor programme is needed is a negotiating posture as much as a forecast: it is compatible with the Fund’s calendar only if the final review passes cleanly before 15 December. And the Saudi deposit is the live variable nobody has resolved — rolled, the September composition holds; converted into equity in state assets, the headline figure can stay put while changing character entirely. The deposit report comes from a Qatari-owned outlet with a stake in the framing, and neither Cairo nor Riyadh has confirmed it. Watch the end-October delivery of Madbouly’s 2045 plan, promised to land in the same window as Egypt Forum 2026 on 19–24 October, for whether anything with a price attached travels with it.