Reserves set a ninth straight record while canal income stays below half its 2023 peak

The Central Bank of Egypt said on Wednesday 7 October that net international reserves reached $57.3482 billion at the end of September, up $133.7 million from $57.2145 billion in August and $56.2939 billion in July. Arab News counts it as a ninth consecutive monthly record, up $7.81 billion or 15.8 per cent year-on-year. Composition reported via Arab Finance: gross reserves of $57.350 billion against $49.536 billion a year earlier, foreign currency holdings of $39.292 billion versus $33.649 billion, gold at $17.456 billion versus $15.843 billion, and SDRs of $602 million against $44 million. Within the month, currency holdings rose $1.74 billion while gold fell — Rio Times puts the decline at $1.6 billion — and the CBE has not said whether that is valuation or disposal. Flow support is real: remittances hit a record $47.3 billion in FY2025/26, up 29.6 per cent.

Against that stock sits the earnings hole. Madbouly told CNN Business Arabic on Sunday 4 October that Red Sea disruption has cut canal income by over $6 billion a year, from about $10 billion to $3.3 billion, recovering to roughly $4.4 billion — still less than half the record $10.25 billion of 2023. Suez Canal Authority chairman Osama Rabie reported on 20 September that August traffic rose 27 per cent year-on-year to 1,358 vessels, with revenue at $567.1 million against $326 million and net tonnage of 68.3 million against 45.2 million. He put FY2025/26 revenue at $4.67 billion, up 23 per cent, and forecasts $5.8–6 billion for calendar 2026 against about $4.1 billion a year earlier. The canal is handling 14,000–15,000 vessels, against roughly 26,000 in 2023. A transit surcharge adjustment took effect on 15 July.

The programme anchor goes in nine weeks. The $8 billion IMF facility expires on 15 December after one final review, which together with a climate fund review could release about $2.3 billion; the Fund’s latest review puts asset sales at only around $520 million by July — a figure found in this window only via the aggregator Rio Times and worth checking against Country Report 26/224 before it is relied on. Madbouly has said since June that no successor programme is needed, and the State Information Service records the same position. Growth came in at 5.1 per cent for FY2025/26, below the 5.3 per cent he cited in June, with 5.4 per cent targeted this year. The pound eased 0.44 per cent to 52.27 on 1 October, against a July Reuters poll of 15 economists projecting roughly 49 by end-FY2026/27. The overnight deposit rate was held at 19.00 per cent on 24 September; the next decision is 29 October.

Assessment: Read the two numbers as different things. The reserve record is a balance-sheet stock assembled from remittances, portfolio money attracted by a 19 per cent policy rate, and gold revaluation — all reversible, and none of it export earnings. The canal is the earnings line, and it is structurally short by more than half. Rabie’s $5.8–6 billion target implies the second half of 2026 carries the year almost alone, and no one has separated how much of the year-on-year rebound is the 15 July surcharge rather than ships. The thing to watch is absence: no successor financing framework has been named for 2027, and no new Gulf deposit or rollover surfaced this week. That is not a denial. It is simply unanswered, with the IMF exit dated.