President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi ordered on Saturday the continuous development of the banking sector's performance and urged working on maintaining policies aiming to stabilise the performance of the country's monetary sector. The aim is to strengthen the state's efforts to face various challenges and the Central Bank's ability to finance various development initiatives, a presidential statement read, following a meeting between El-Sisi, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, and Governor of the Egyptian Central Bank (CBE) Tarek Amer. This includes initiatives allocated for individuals and low- and middle-income categories, as well as medium, small, and micro-sized companies. This is in addition to the mortgage initiatives. The meeting addressed the CBE's efforts within the framework of economic and developmental activity through the banking and monetary work system, the statement read. Amer reviewed with the president the country's economic position after a year and a half amid the coronavirus crisis, saying the Egyptian economy has shown cohesion and achieved great success during this period, which was reflected by the stability of governmental and private banking institutions. This comes especially in light of the group of initiatives the CBE has introduced to ease the burden that citizens and companies shoulder. The CBE's initiatives include postponing credit payments for six months on all credit entitlements and introducing investment certificates with high interest rates through the pandemic. During the meeting, El-Sisi was briefed on samples of the new banknotes that are set to be released by November, the statement added. Amer highlighted the CBE's success in managing foreign reserves during the pandemic, causing it to rise from $37 billion to $40.5 billion. He also highlighted the success achieved by the second programme of cooperation between the government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF has praised the Egyptian government's performance and balanced and transparent economic management, Amer added. The praise from the world's largest financial supervision institution has contributed to forming a good reputation for the Egyptian economy, Amer said, noting that this reputation increased foreign exchange flows during the first half of this year to around $5 billion. The IMF said in a report published last week that the economic and social impact of the coronavirus pandemic over the past year had been well-managed by the Egyptian authorities. "Timely and prudent fiscal and monetary easing shielded the economy from the full brunt of the crisis, while alleviating the health and social impact of the shock," the report said, adding that the economic policies adopted had helped to deliver macroeconomic stabilisation, safeguard debt sustainability, and preserve investor confidence.
