Egypt's balance of payments registered a surplus worth some $2.2 billion in the first nine months of the 2013/2014 fiscal year, according to recent press release by the state's central bank. The surplus comes in contrast to a deficit of $2.1 billion in the same period of the previous fiscal year, CBE added. Under the balance of payments, Egypt saw its current account deficit diminishing to a record $232.7 million, down from a significant $5.7 billion during the aforementioned period. However, the capital and financial accounts witnessed a net inflow of around $3.5 billion in the period between July and March of the fiscal year 2013/14, representing a 46 percent fall from $6.5 billion inflows in the corresponding period in 2012/13. The CBE attributed the improvement in the current account deficit to the 63.8 percent increase in the net unrequited transfers (official transfers and expatriates' remittances) that reached $23.6 billion, compared to $14.4 billion in the previous year. In addition, a 1.5 percent decline in Egypt's trade deficit, which totals $25.2 billion, has helped in reducing the current account deficit. The improvement in the current account deficit could have been larger but for the drop in services surplus, from some $5.4 billion to $1.3 billion. "Such a drop came mainly on the back of the 57.3 percent decline in tourism revenues, to reach a total of some $3.4 billion (against some $8.1 billion), due to the fall in the number of tourist nights by 55.3 percent, to 51.2 million nights (against 114.6 million nights," CBE explained in the release. Egypt saw a surplus of $237 million in its overall balance of payments in the fiscal year 2012/13. Source : Ahram online
