US dollar rise to stop at EGP 8 before Economic Summit: FEI head

The current rise of the US dollar value against the Egyptian pound will benefit the economy on the long term; however, it will harm the budget on the short term, said head of the Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI) Mohamed El Sewedy in a Wednesday press conference.

He said that before the Central Bank of Egypt’s dollar auctions, which started in December 2012 on a weekly basis, the government was interfering to save the value of the Egyptian pound.

This led to activating the black market, which was buying dollars at higher prices than the official prices, thus companies were losing money because they had to deal with the official market, El Sewedy said.