Egyptian worker remittances surge in second quarter, central bank says

Egypt's remittances from its overseas workers surged to $7.5 billion in the April-June quarter from $4.6 billion a year earlier, the Central Bank of Egypt said on Wednesday, a sign an IMF-inspired currency reform in March was bearing fruit.

Remittances, which are by far Egypt's biggest source of foreign currency inflows, plummeted over the last two years as workers backed away from bank transfers at an overvalued official exchange rate.

The Egyptian pound was set at 30.85 to the dollar at the official rate but traded as low as 74 on the black market before the government signed an agreement with the International Monetary Fund in March to allow the market to determine its price.

The pound traded at 49.15 to the dollar at 2:15 p.m.(1115 GMT) on Wednesday.

Remittances had plunged to $22.08 billion in the fiscal year that ended in June 2023, from $31.92 billion in 2021/22, according to central bank data, before dropping further to $9.45 billion in the second half of 2023 .

Remittances in June alone jumped to $2.6 billion from $1.5 billion in June 2023, the bank said.

(Reporting by Patrick Werr in Cairo; editing by Jason Neely and Bernadette Baum)