Egypt's public sector companies will have paid back their last 8 billion Egyptian pounds in old debts to state banks as of June 30, Investment Minister Mahmoud Mohieldin was quoted on Thursday as saying. "There will be no more indebtedness," Egypt's official Middle East News Agency (MENA) cited him as saying on Thursday. Mohieldin, in a text message to Reuters, confirmed the amount and the timeline but gave no further details. State-owned National Bank of Egypt (NBE) and Banque Misr, Egypt's first and second biggest banks by assets, said earlier this month they had agreed to accept real estate in exchange for much of the debt. The Ministry of Investment, which controls a large portion of Egypt's state-owned companies, proposed the exchange in October, Mohieldin told Reuters at the time. Egypt has reduced the debt, accrued since nationalisation in the 1960s, from 32 billion pounds.
