Egypt's second-largest state bank, Banque Misr, is in talks with a foreign financial institution for a €300 million ($334.92 million) syndicated loan to shore up its foreign currency resources, Banque Misr announced Monday. Egypt is experiencing a foreign currency crisis and its central bank has been rationing dollars through auctions with commercial banks, giving priority to imports of strategic goods. It sells around $120 million a week. "The negotiations come within the framework of increasing hard currency resources at the bank. The negotiations are due to be complete six months from now, at most," Banque Misr Chairman Mohamed Mahmoud Eletreby said, without naming the bank involved in the negotiations. Egypt's reserves fell to around $16.5 billion in February, from about $36 billion before an uprising in 2011 that drove away tourists and foreign investors, major sources of hard currency. In an attempt to increase their dollar resources, Egypt's three state banks, Banque Misr and the National Bank of Egypt and Banque du Caire began offering in February dollar denominated certificates of deposits with attractive yields to Egyptians living abroad. NBE and Banque Misr also started offering this month Egyptian pound certificates of deposits with an interest rate of 15 percent in exchange for foreign currency. Source: Reuters
