Foreign holdings of Egypt T-Bills almost triple since January

Foreign investors’ holdings of Egyptian Treasury bills have almost tripled since January, further bolstering the government’s case for floating the currency late last year.

Overseas holdings of T-bills reached 60.8 billion Egyptian pounds ($3.3 billion) as of March 14, Samy Khallaf, head of public debt at the Finance Ministry, said in an interview. That compares with 22 billion pounds at the end of January. Foreign investors also bought 3.8 billion pounds of six-month and 12-month notes in a Finance Ministry auction Thursday, he said.

Confidence is growing in Egypt’s economy after the government removed restrictions on the pound exchange rate and secured a $12-billion loan from the International Monetary Fund in November. Even so, the level is still far below the $10 billion of foreign investors’ holdings before the 2011 uprising.