PHOTO
Arab Finance: The Egyptian economy showed a positive balance of payment (BoP) in the first quarter (Q1) of fiscal year (FY) 2025/2026, with the current account deficit falling 45.2% to $3.2 billion from $5.9 billion a year earlier, according to the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE).
Meanwhile, the overall deficit hit $1.6 billion during the July-September period 2025, compared to $991.2 million in the year-ago period.
The CBE attributed the results to a 28.4% surge in net unrequited current transfers, which hit $10.7 billion, mainly driven by increased remittances from Egyptians working abroad.
Likewise, the services surplus hiked by 23.4% to $500 million due to a leap in both tourism revenues and Suez Canal transit receipts.
Tourism revenues jumped by 13.8% year-on-year (YoY) to $5.5 billion in Q1 FY2025/2026 from $4.8 billion, backed by a surge in the number of tourist nights to 58.7 million nights.
The remittances of Egyptians working abroad soared by 29.8% to $10.8 billion from $8.3 billion.
Suez Canal transit receipts hiked by 12.4% YoY to $1.05 billion at the end of September 2025, versus $931.2 million. The recorded growth was driven by a 8.6% rise in net tonnage to 138.1 million tons and 2.5% increase in the number of vessels passing via the canal to 3,300 vessels.
Non-oil trade deficit shrank by 4% to $9.5 billion in Q1 FY2025/2026 from $9.8 billion in Q1 FY2024/2025.
During the same period, the foreign direct investment (FDI) in Egypt registered a net inflow of $2.4 billion, down YoY from $2.7 billion.
