CAIRO: Egypt's Central Bank last week reported that foreign direct investment (FDI) is down 39 percent for the last fiscal year. Egyptian economic dealings with the outside world, recorded a retreat in the last fiscal year, which was affected by the repercussions of the global financial crisis, causing a deficit in the balance of payments to approximately 3.4 billion dollars, the Central Bank said. The Egyptian central bank said in a statement issued on Thursday that the deficit in the balance of payments led to a lack of international reserves that the bank currently holds. According to the statement, the actual balance of the current dealings recorded a deficit amounted to 3.4 billion dollars. Capital transactions showed a decline in the net financial flows of foreign direct investment in Egypt by about 38.7% to $ 8.1 billion versus $13.2 billion dollars during the fiscal year 2007/2008. Sami Sharif, an expert in direct investment, attributed the decline in the balance of payments to the decrease in demand in the global market due to the financial crisis. Egyptian analysts and ministry of finance, ministry of trade and others argue that this trend is expected to regroup by the end of the currenty year and optimism abounds for 2010 as major Western economies appear to have begun to pick their economies out of the mud of the global recession. **reporting by Mohamed Abdel Salam BM
