The National Bank of Egypt (NBE) has recently concluded agreements with a number of distressed clients, to settle EGP 700 million worth of their debts. Speaking to Amwal Al Ghad on Saturday, executive board member Yehia Abu El Fotouh said NBE's debt settlement agreements conducted a week earlier were with three clients operating in Egypt's tourism sector in addition to two more from sectors of iron and steel, and cardboard. For the three clients from the tourism sector, the bank settled EGP 600 million worth of debts, he noted. For the iron and steel, and cardboard clients, NBE conducted agreements for debts valued at EGP 100 million. Two clients, one from tourism sector and another from steel sector, had repaid NBE the value of the settlement agreements in cash, whereas the three remaining clients' debts were to be timetabled, the banking official elaborated. Furthermore, Abu El Fotouh said the NBE's tourism finance portfolio had reached EGP 9 billion, including EGP 4 billion worth of loan default portfolio. By end of fiscal year 2013/14, the bank's loan default recorded EGP 6 billion, seeking to minimise them to EGP 5.5 billion by end of the current fiscal year.
