Egypt has signed a $3.1 billion funding deal with foreign banks as part of its efforts to increase foreign reserves, the Central Bank of Egypt said in a statement on Monday. The repurchase transaction was signed on Monday with the same consortium of lenders from a deal signed last year, which includes Barclays Bank, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan Securities and HSBC, the statement added. Egypt repaid a total of $2 billion from the old agreement on 9 November. The central bank said that Egypt received a total of $4.3 billion in bids for the repurchase transaction. The bank said that this reflects "a vote of confidence by the international market in the success of the home-grown economic reform programme in the past year, as well as the ongoing commitment demonstrated by the Egyptian authorities in bolstering domestic economic and financial conditions." Egypt's foreign reserves have been climbing since it floated the pound in November 2016 as part of an economic reform programme, hitting $36.703 billion at the end of October.
