Dr. Farouk El-Okdah succeeded in developing the Central Bank of Egypt's (CBE) human resources in all departments, said Nidal Assar, CBE's sub governor for investment and foreign relations. After being Governor at CBE in 2003, El-Okdah has made CBE an independent institution, Assar added on the sidelines of Euromoney Conference. Being CBE's Governor has fostered the investors' confidence in the Egyptian market as he continuously reforms the Egyptian banking sector, reduces non-performing loan portfolios and keeps exchange rate market balanced. Assar referred to the economic situation that currently many challenges as Egypt's Credit Default Swap (CDS) was lowered from 7.4% to 4% after the political and economic turmoil that followed last year's revolution. CBE's strategy has not changed for 8 years despite all the challenges and difficulties that faced Egypt. Such strategy works on making Egypt a more secure market for investments. Regarding decreasing the budget deficit, Assar said the government will turn to reform the subsidy system in order to reduce expenditures. He then stressed the importance of increasing resources in order to reduce the budget deficit. Reforming subsidy program will not raise the inflation rates of the prices of food and energy goods, if CBE maintained a well-controlled monetary policy, he confirmed, noting that the Egyptian banking sector has proven to be consistent in the face of crises; starting from the global financial crisis in 2008 to the turmoil that followed last year's revolution.
