Egypt's Holdings of US Treasury Securities Stabilize for Third Month

The US Treasury Department data showed that Egypt's holdings of US securities amounted to $2.242 billion in February 2021, compared to $2.207 billion, year-on-year.

On a monthly basis, Egypt's possession of US Treasury bonds stabilized during February 2021, compared to $2.242 billion in January.

In the Arab world, Saudi Arabia continued to be ranked first in the Arab world in the holdings value of US treasury bonds, at a value of $132.9 billion, followed by the United Arab Emirates with $50.6 billion, and Kuwait with $44.8 billion.

At the global level, Japan topped the list in possessing US T-bills by about $1.258 trillion, followed by China with $1.104 trillion, and the United Kingdom with $459.5 billion.

Overall, February US Treasury bonds tumbled 1.77% to $7.098 trillion compared to $7.226 trillion a year earlier, with a monthly decline of 0.29%.

The US Treasury bonds are a means of collecting debts from countries and institutions until a maturity date, which varies according to the term of the bond.

On May 12, Egypt received $2.7 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which represents the value of the rapid credit financing granted to the Egyptian government.

Egypt and the fund team reached an expert-level agreement on a credit agreement for a period of 12 months, at a value of $5.2 billion.

The IMF stated that the latest agreement paves the way for presentation to the Fund's Executive Board to obtain its final approval of the agreement and the required amount of financing, according to a statement by the Egyptian Ministry of Finance.

The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) data showed an increase in foreign reserves during February by about $100 million to reach $40.200 billion compared to $40.100 billion MoM.

Last November, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Egypt decided to reduce both the overnight deposit and lending rate and the central bank’s main operation rate by 50 basis points to 8.25%, 9.25% and 8.75%, respectively.

Earlier last month, the committee announced that the interest rate would be fixed for the second time in a row this year.