Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Beltone: Egypt's Tourism Sector Expected To Reach $16.4 Bln in 2020


Sun 17 Nov 2019 | 11:02 PM
Hassan El-Khawaga

Beltone Financial, one of the largest investment banks in the Middle East and North Africa, expected on Sunday Egypt's tourism sector to continue its growth during the next fiscal year 2020/2021 to record $16.4 billion, compared to $12.6 billion in the FY 2018/2019.

In its annual report about Egypt’s economy 2020, Beltone Financial said the country's tourism revenues are expected to reach $14.6 in the current fiscal year 2019/2020 and $18 billion in 2021/2022

The bank hailed efforts exerted by the Tourism Ministry to develop a reform strategy, which includes the launching of a private equity funding to improve hotel services, and introducing administrative and legislative measures, as well as conducting promotion campaigns.

The bank forecast that the Suez Canal would see a surge in revenues during the current fiscal year, hitting $5.8 compared to $5.7 billion in the past fiscal year.

Belton also predicted that Egypt’s trade balance would achieve a surplus of $41.0 billion in the FY 2019/2020, and $44.8 billion in the FY 2020-2021.

Concerning local currency performance, the bank expected that the US dollar would continue to fall against the Egyptian pound. By the beginning of the new year, the greenback's exchange rate will range between EGP 15.9 and 16.

The bank ascribed its positive outlook for the Egyptian pound performance in 2020 to several reasons, notably the rise in net foreign exchange reserves, in addition to the emergence of indications that the oil trade balance will register a surplus of $8 million in the FY 2018/2019, along with the recovery of tourism and services sectors.

The bank pointed out that the unofficial foreign currencies reserves for the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) registered $11.3 billion from October with an increase of 9% compared to January.