Saeed Embaby, CEO of iSagha.com, a platform for trading gold and jewellery, said that gold dealers are currently pricing the dollar at a lower value than its prices in the parallel market. Embaby explained that the price of a gram of gold, according to the price of the dollar in the parallel market, rose to about EGP 2,800 for 21-karat, compared to around EGP 2,735, on Saturday evening. He added that the normal price of a gram based on the official dollar rate (EGP 30.77) should not exceed EGP 1,725, but the lack of a fixed and unified price for the dollar has created confusion in the local market. He revealed: "There are three main factors that determine gold prices in general, namely international prices, the dollar, and supply and demand. However, the local market has long been detached from international prices, and supply and demand have become the main driver of gold price in Egypt." Embaby called for the need to disclose supply and demand data in Egypt to end the chaos of rising prices and reach a fair price. He said that the current period is witnessing a high demand for gold in the local market, but no one can measure its size, to know how much it affects the market. He added: "At the beginning of the aggression on Gaza, the price of an ounce globally reached $2,000, and gold did not increase to EGP 2,700. Currently, the ounce has dropped to $1,980, and gold locally has appreciated to EGP 2,725." Embaby said that sales of iSagha have increased by 47% since the beginning of the year and that the estimated number of its users since the beginning of the year reached about 4.5 million users, with 65 million visits. Embaby noted that iSagha is the first application in Egypt to display gold prices online since 2016, and then added currency and silver prices. iSagha plans to make the documents of the first gold investment fund AZ Gold (AZG) available through its platform starting next year. Last June, Azimut Egypt, and Evolve Investment closed the first subscription for the gold investment fund AZG, bringing the size of the first tranche of subscriptions to nearly EGP152.8m.
