Egypt’s BoP records deficit of $409.6mln in H1 FY2023/24

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Egypt’s balance of payment (BoP) saw an overall deficit of $409.6 million during the first half (H1) of the current fiscal year (FY) 2023/2024, versus a surplus of $599.1 million in the same period of FY 2022/2023, according to a report by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE).

The report also showed that the current account deficit rose to $9.6 billion, compared to $1.8 billion during H1 FY2022/2023.

The current account deficit was affected by the 20% climb in the trade deficit, which reached $18.7 billion.

The capital and financial account registered a net inflow of $8.4 billion during July-December 2023, up from $2.8 billion in the year-ago period.

Meanwhile, foreign direct investments (FDI) recorded a net inflow of $5.5 billion in the country, while portfolio investments realized a net inflow of $252.8 million, versus a net outflow of $3 billion.

Tourism revenues climbed by 6.1% to $7.8 billion during the H1 of the current FY, compared to $7.3 billion in the July-December period of 2022.

This increase was due to the surge in numbers of both tourist nights by 6.1% to 83.2 million and tourist arrivals to Egypt by 14.7% to 7.8 million tourists.

Remittances of Egyptian workers abroad dropped by 21.2% to $9.4 billion in H1 FY2023/2024 from $12 billion in the comparable period a FY earlier.

Furthermore, the Suez Canal transit receipts rose by 20.7% to $4.8 billion, compared to $4 billion in the corresponding half a FY earlier, driven by the jump in both net tonnage of vessels by 5.5% to 794.6 million tons and the number of passing vessels by 4.1%.