It has more than doubled in recent years..The Egyptian external debt is close to 135 billion dollars

Cairo -

The Central Bank of Egypt announced that the country's external debt rose during the first quarter of this year, to reach $134.8 billion by the end of March 2021, compared to $129.1 billion in December 2020, an increase of $5.64 billion, or 4.37%.

With this rise, the rate of increase in Egypt's foreign debt during a year amounted to about 21%, after it had reached $123.5 billion in March 2020.

Increase details

Data from the Central Bank of Egypt, according to local newspapers, indicated that long-term debt constituted about 90% of the total external debt, reaching about $121.2 billion at the end of last March, while the percentage of short-term debt reached nearly 10% of the total debt. worth $13.3 billion.

The statement also indicated that the government's external debt had risen to about $80 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2021, compared to about $77 billion at the end of the last quarter of 2020, an increase of about $3 billion.

As for the Egyptian banks, the statement indicated a marginal decrease in the external debt of the Central Bank by about 450 million dollars to reach about 25.8 billion dollars at the end of the first quarter of 2021 compared to the last quarter of 2020, while the external debts of the banks increased to about 13.8 billion dollars, an increase of about 1.6 billion dollars. The debts of other sectors increased to about 14.8 billion dollars, an increase of about one billion dollars.

The external debts of banks increased to about 13.8 billion dollars by the end of the first quarter of 2021 (Reuters)

10 years of mounting debt

Since the start of the revolution of January 25, 2011 until today, the Egyptian foreign debt has witnessed a clear rise within 10 years, but the pace of this rise increased sharply with the arrival of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi to power.

According to the periodic data of the Central Bank of Egypt, the value of Egypt’s external debt at the end of Mubarak’s rule in December 2010 amounted to 34.9 billion dollars, then it decreased to 34.3 billion dollars during the period of the military council’s rule from February 11, 2011 until the end of June 2012.

The period of the late President Mohamed Morsi’s rule witnessed an increase in the value of the external debt to 43.2 billion dollars in the 2012-2013 fiscal year, and it increased during the rule of interim President Adly Mansour, which extended for the 2013-2014 fiscal year, to 46 billion dollars.

With President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi assuming power, starting in June 2014, Egypt expanded significantly in borrowing, bringing the size of the external debt to 134.8, according to the latest statement, which means that the increase, during his rule, reached nearly 3 times the external debt. before coming to power.