CAIRO: Decline in remittances from Egyptian expatriates hit 16.5 percent in the first half of the current fiscal year, the Egyptian government reported. According to the Egyptian official news agency MENA, remittances from Egyptians abroad dropped to $4.36 billion during the first half of the current fiscal year 2009/2010. The total net private transfers reached to some $3.46 billion compared to $4.14 billion in the corresponding half of the previous year, which was offset partially by the increase of official transfers by $400 million during the period. The news agency said the account remittances account decreased by about 6 percent from $4.65 billion to $4.36 billion. The indicators of the development plan issued by the ministry of the economic development last Thursday explained that the current account balance showed a deficit of $1.3 billion during the first half of the current fiscal year, which is “equivalent to about half of the shortage in the corresponding period of the previous year, which stood at about 2.5 billion.” At the level of the second quarter of the year, the current account balance achieved a surplus amounting to about $198 million compared to a deficit in the first quarter of the same period last year, which amounted to $481 million compared to $1.5 billion deficit in the second quarter of the previous year due to a major decline in Trade deficit in the second quarter of 2009/2010. The indicators showed that the surplus of capital account and financial records increased by 62 percent during The first half of 2009/2010 to reach about $3.3 billion compared to about $2 billion during the corresponding half last year. The report attributed this development primarily to the “recovery of investment in financial portfolio, and transforming it from a negative value that reached $7.4 billion to a positive value that reached $1.56 billion.” The indicators showed that, despite the continuing influence of the repercussions of the economic crisis, Some items on the global balance of payments ,but that the balance achieved in the whole surplus $2.65 billion during the first half of the current fiscal year, while it had suffered from a deficit of more than half a billion dollars in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal period. BM
