Cairo: The Central Bank revealed that the financial sector's total deficit amounted to 37.2 billion pounds (LE) in the period from last July to September. The bank attributed the deficit to the difference between the total revenue, which reached LE39.9 billion, and total expenditure, which was LE75.8 billion. Meanwhile, total domestic public debt reached LE761.6 billion by the end of last June, with the government due to pay 73.8% of the debt, public and economic bodies 9.6% and the National Investment Bank covering 19.3% of this debt. The Central Bank noted in its monthly statistical bulletin that debt decreased by 2.4 billion dollars to 31.5 billion dollars by the end of last June. Compared to the same period of last year, attributing the decline to the decrease of the exchange rates of most borrowing currencies against the U.S. dollar, a net repayment of loans amounted to 1.1 billion dollars. External debt decrased by 449.1 million dollars, to reach three billion dollars during the last fiscal year 2008 – 2009 . Debt service rose compared to the current revenues by 1.2% compared to last year due to lower financial consequences. The Central Bank said net international reserves rose by 31.3 billion dollars at the end of June to 34 billion dollars at the end of last October to cover 8.1 months of merchandise imports.
