Record $57.5bn in reserves, a record-low pound, and an IMF tranche due in eight days

Provisional Central Bank of Egypt data released on Thursday 5 November put net foreign exchange reserves at roughly $57.500bn at end-October, up $152m on September’s $57.348bn, per Amwal Al Ghad. On Friday 6 November Abdalla confirmed the figure at a financial markets conference, adding — in a CBE statement relayed by the Egyptian Gazette, the only outlet carrying it in our sweep — that banking-sector net foreign assets are at their highest since 2011 and that inflation has declined. The surrounding fortnight is the context. The pound hit a record low above EGP 55 to the dollar on 22 October, per Ahram Online, and was above EGP 56 by 4 November, per Al-Ahram Weekly. On 29 October the MPC raised the overnight deposit rate to 20% and lending to 21%, 100 basis points, the first hike since March 2024, against market expectation of a sixth consecutive hold.

The programme clock is the other half of it. The 48-month Extended Fund Facility expires 15 December 2026; the eighth and final EFF review and third RSF review are the remaining business. IMF communications director Julie Kozack said on 29 October that the mission aimed to reach a staff-level agreement and take it to the Board before mid-December, with discussions focused on “maintaining a tight monetary policy, maintaining the fiscal consolidation plan.” No staff-level agreement has been announced. The fifth/sixth review staff report schedules SDR 1,113.02m for 15 November, eight days out, plus three RSF tranches of SDR 100m each. The seventh review, IMF Country Report No. 26/224, put this fiscal year’s external financing gap at $9.7bn and noted privatisation receipts had fallen sharply.

Assessment: Reserves rising while the currency falls and policy rates go up is the single most legible fact on this desk. It tells you the reserve build is being purchased — with yield, and with official inflows that carry conditions. Abdalla has been consistent about what he is actually defending: “the most important thing for us is unifying the exchange rate, not the exchange rate itself,” he said on 2 November, calling flexibility the “first line of defence.” Read the October hike as the price of keeping carry trade money in place through the final review, not as an inflation response. Two cautions: the net-foreign-assets-since-2011 claim rests on a single relay of a CBE statement, and Businessday’s 6 November rate story is a re-run of the 29 October decision. Madbouly said in June that Egypt expects no new programme after December. Hold that against the $9.7bn.