Egypt Gets $14 Billion Boost From #UAE as Landmark Deal Pays Out - Bloomberg

Egypt Gets $14 Billion Boost From UAE as Landmark Deal Pays Out - Bloomberg

Egypt received a further $14 billion from its landmark investment deal with the United Arab Emirates, providing another surge of dollar liquidity about two months after a currency flotation.

The transfer, announced Wednesday by Egypt’s cabinet, was the second tranche of the $35 billion pact signed in February that was billed as the North African nation’s biggest-ever inward investment.

The UAE deal marked a turnaround in fortunes for the most populous Middle Eastern nation after a grinding two-year economic crisis and a chronic foreign-exchange shortage. It allowed authorities to oversee a long-awaited devaluation of the currency that in turn unlocked more financing from the International Monetary Fund, European Union and others — taking the total secured by Egypt to $57 billion.

Egypt received initial transfers of $15 billion within two weeks of inking the UAE deal, with a third of that sum coming from existing Emirati deposits in the Egyptian central bank.

Authorities have begun procedures to exchange another UAE deposit of $6 billion into Egyptian pounds, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said Wednesday.