The Egyptian pound fell to an all-time low of 9 against the dollar in black market trade on Monday from 8.85 the day before, prompting a rush to buy the US currency, Reuters reports. The fall of the pound comes as import-dependent Egypt faces a foreign currency crisis that has increased the pressure on the government to devalue the pound. “There is a huge rush over dollars amidst weak supply on the part of exchange bureaus. People want to keep their dollars as the crisis worsens,” one trader told Reuters. In an effort to alleviate the dollar shortage, which has led to imports of essential goods languishing at customs, Egypt’s central bank on Monday raised the ceiling on foreign currency deposits for exporters to USD 1 million a month, Reuters cited an “as yet unpublished central bank statement” as saying. However, the financial newspaper Al-Borsa published what seems to be photographs of the statement where the central bank appears to establish three conditions for the raising of the cap on the foreign currency deposits. They include stipulations that the deposits must be consistent with the value of the imports that the…
