Banks operating in the local market acquired 77.87% of the total balance of treasury bills put forward by the Ministry of Finance by the end of March, according to research conducted by Daily News Egypt. The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) revealed in a statement that the outstanding balances of treasury bills registered EGP 605.24bn at the end of March. Banks have acquired a total of EGP 471.358bn of that figure. Public banks invested EGP 262.5bn in treasury bills at the end of March, while private banks invested EGP 173.02bn and foreign banks operating in Egypt invested EGP 26.266bn. Specialised banks spent EGP 7.431bn, while the National Investment Bank spent EGP 2.085bn, according to CBE. The second largest sector investing in treasury bills was investment funds. Investment funds acquired about EGP 6.152bn of the treasury bills' total outstanding balances, while their total investment amounted to about EGP 37.239bn in March, according to the Daily News Egypt research. Public, private, and foreign insurance companies completed investments worth EGP 27.041bn, which amounted to 4.46% of the bills that were introduced by the end of March. Public insurance companies' investments reached EGP 19.033bn, compared to EGP 3.797bn worth of investments from private insurance companies and about EGP 211m from foreign insurance companies operating in Egypt. The analysis also looked at the acquisition of the holding companies, which amounted to 2.812% of the total balances of treasury bills in March, which is equivalent to EGP 17.025bn. The household sector acquired 0.652%, reaching EGP 3.949bn of total investments. Investments by foreign customers have decreased due to the 25 January Revolution. According to the analysis, foreign investments in treasury bills reached about EGP 356m, (about $ 40.1m), based on the US dollar price of EGP 8.78. Foreign investment reached EGP 56bn (about $10.7bn) in January 2011, based on the US dollar price of EGP 5.20. The CBE allowed for public and private banks in March to guarantee a unified exchange rate of the US dollar against the Egyptian pound for foreign investors and to obtain the value and the revenue of their investments when leaving the market. Analysts predicted that this will encourage foreigners to return to invest in treasury bills once again. However, this was not reflected in the figures by the CBE.
