The Egyptian Ministry of Finance canceled bids to sell three- and eight-year bonds worth 3.5 billion Egyptian pounds after banks and investors had asked for high interest rates. "The prices are not appropriate," Assistant Minister of Finance for capital markets operations, Khalid Abdel Rahman, said. "We will accept the prices that suit us," Abdel Rahman added. On the other hand, bankers said that banks offers in bids were between 18 and 18.5percent. The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), on behalf of the Ministry of Finance, issued 3.5 billion pounds ($195.39 million) in treasury bonds Monday. The T-bonds were offered in two installments, with the first valued at 1.5 billion pounds with an eight-year term and the second worth 2 billion pounds with a three-year term. Egypt targets an average of interest rate on the government debt instrument to reach 14.7 percent in the current budget, compared to an expected average of 18.5 percent in 2017/2018 budget. Foreign investors' investments in the Egyptian government debt instruments recorded $23.1 billion by the end of March 2018, up from about $20 billion in December. Egypt needs to fund 2018/2019 budget by 714.64 billion pounds; 511.21 billion pounds will be provided from domestic debt instrument and the rest will come from foreign financing through the issuance of bonds and the IMF loan.
