CAIRO, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- Egypt's foreign currency reserves exceeded 38.2 billion U.S. dollars by the end of January, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) said in a statement on Sunday.
The figures declined from 36 billion dollars in January 2011, just before the uprising that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak, to 13.5 billion in February 2013, a few months before the ouster of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi.
The political instability and relevant security issues led to economic recession and decline of tourism and foreign investments, two major sources for Egypt's foreign currency reserves.
It started to gradually rise under President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, who led Morsi's ouster in response to mass protests, until it hit 37.02 billion dollars by the end of 2017.
Improved security conditions, increasing remittances of Egyptian expatriates, in addition to foreign loans and deposits have refilled the CBE with foreign funds.
Egypt's foreign debts rose to 81 billion dollars, according to a statement from Finance Minister Amr al-Garhy in mid-January.
The foreign debts increased about 42 percent to 79 billion dollars during the 2016-17 fiscal year ending in June 2017, compared with 55.8 billion dollars a year earlier.
A CBE official said in January that Egypt paid off about 30 billion dollars of financial dues and foreign debts in 2017 and the country is committed to paying back more than 12 billion dollars in 2018.
The repayments cover bonds and foreign debts to regional and international banks, deposits and loans from countries like Saudi Arabia, Libya and Turkey, commitments by government bodies to world companies, as well as dues to the Paris Club.
To contain dollar shortage, Egypt started in late 2016 a strict three-year economic reform program including austerity measures, energy subsidy cuts and tax increases, in addition to currency full floatation, although they led to nationwide price hikes.
Egypt's reform program is encouraged by a 12-billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund, half of which has already been delivered to the most populous Arab country.
