Rami Aboul Naga, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank, revealed that some $17 billion of foreign capital has been withdrawn from Egypt due to the corona crisis. Aboul Naga pointed out that the peak of the exit wave was during March, then the wave receded in April, before reaching a balance during the current month. He stressed that Egypt’s cash reserves currently cover its needs for a period of seven months. According to Bloomberg, Egypt experienced selling waves that led to an exit of about $13.5 billion in March, as foreign investment shrank by almost half.

The Central Bank partially covered the capital withdrawals made by foreign portfolios through the mechanism of transferring funds of foreign investors abroad, which guarantees investors the ability to withdraw profits in hard currency, and as a result, net international reserves fell by $5.4 billion in March. Egypt lost approximately $8.5 billion from its foreign exchange reserves in March and April, which fell from $45.5 billion to $37.037 billion, or 18.6 per cent.