Egypt’s gross domestic product grew by 5.4 percent during the first half of the fiscal year, compared with 5.3 percent during the same period last year, Minister of Planning Hala el-Saeed announced on Wednesday.
Egypt is targeting GDP growth of 5.6 percent during the second half of the current fiscal year, said the Minister in a statement.
The Egyptian economy benefited from the stability of the local currency during the past two years, after authorities allowed the pound to float, in November 2016, losing more than half of its value against the dollar.
The pound saw a relative recovery this week, amid reports of strong foreign purchases in the Egyptian debt market.
Foreign investors bought 100 percent of Egypt's five-year treasury bonds last Monday, worth $65.7 million.
The Ministry of Finance said that the participation rate of foreigners this week was about 30 percent, on average, in treasury bill tenders, and about 55 percent in five-and ten-year treasury bills.
After pulling out about $10 billion from Egypt during a global selloff last year, foreign investors are back to capture the highest yields in emerging markets after Argentina, according to a Bloomberg index.
The average yields in Monday’s sale dropped 44 basis points, the most in a year, to 17.59 percent, data compiled by Bloomberg.
Egypt plans to issue foreign-currency bonds in early 2019 to raise $3 billion to $7 billion, Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said on Wednesday.
The offering will take place in February or March, Maait told Reuters.
Earlier, the Ministry announced that Egypt plans to issue a number of dollar-denominated and euro-denominated bonds by the end of this fiscal year in June. Another offering of green bonds as well as international bonds in an unspecified Asian currency will be offered after that, it said.
JP Morgan, HSBC and Citigroup will manage the dollar-denominated issue, the ministry said. BNP Paribas, Natixis, Alex Bank and Standard Chartered chose to manage the euro-denominated issue.
