Egypt books a record reserve level and a current account deficit seven billion dollars wider

The Central Bank of Egypt reported net international reserves of $57.348bn at end-September 2026, which it described as an all-time high, up $133.7m from $57.2145bn at end-August, per the State Information Service and Egypt Independent. Daily News Egypt put the nine-month build at $5.896bn, from $51.452bn at end-December 2025. Five days later, on 12 October, the bank published its balance of payments for FY2025/26: the current account deficit widened to $22.5bn from $15.4bn the previous fiscal year, a gap roughly $7.1bn larger, with Suez transit receipts recovering to $4.4bn, up 21.6 percent. The two releases are not in conflict — reserves are a stock built largely through the financial account, the current account measures the external balance of trade, services and income — but they point in opposite directions, and the second has drawn markedly less Egyptian coverage than the first.

The programme that has underwritten much of the inflow is approaching its end. Bloomberg reported on 15 October, citing a senior Fund official, that the IMF will open talks on the final review of Egypt’s $8bn Extended Fund Facility after this month’s annual meetings, with the aim of signing off by December. The Executive Board approved the combined fifth and sixth reviews and extended the facility to end-2026, disbursing $2.27bn; the seventh EFF review and the second review under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility were completed around late August, in Country Report No. 26/224. That review projected real growth of 4.6 percent in FY2025/26 easing to 4.4 percent in FY2026/27. The Fund’s regional outlook, reported on 22 October by the state-aligned EgyptToday, puts calendar-2026 growth higher, at 5.1 percent.

Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly has signalled that Cairo does not want a successor arrangement. The Files could trace that statement, reported on 4 October, only to Rio Times, which aggregates an interview it does not name; the original has not been located, and the quote is not reproduced here. Taken at face value, the position and the Fund’s December timetable are compatible only if Egypt clears the remaining structural benchmarks, which centre on divesting state-owned and military-affiliated assets. No divestment schedule, EGX listing or pre-mission sale was reported in the past 48 hours.

Assessment: Read the two CBE releases as one document. A reserve stock at a record while the external gap widens by nearly half tells you the money is arriving through portfolio flows, deposits and borrowing rather than through what Egypt earns abroad. That is a composition the central bank does not break out in the headline line, and the October data needed to confirm it — Gulf deposit rollovers, T-bill holdings, Ras El-Hekma tranches — was not available for this edition. Distrust any framing that treats $57.348bn as evidence of external strength. The December review is where the distinction gets priced: a clean graduation requires sales Cairo has so far declined to schedule.