CAIRO, July 13 (Xinhua) -- The Egyptian pound demonstrated the best performance among the currencies of emerging markets over the past three years, the Egyptian cabinet said in a statement on Monday.
It added that the country's local currency was the least affected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
"Over the past three years, the Egyptian pound has managed to maintain its good performance level to remain the steadiest among emerging market currencies against the U.S. dollar, and the least affected by the repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic," said the statement.
The cabinet's media center posted an infographic showing that the exchange rate of the Egyptian pound against the U.S. dollar improved by 10.8 percent from end of June 2017 to end of June 2020.
The exchange rate of the U.S. dollar is currently about 15.9 Egyptian pounds.
The local currency's improvement came despite the country's decline of foreign currency reserves, which dropped from 45.5 billion U.S. dollars in late February to 36 billion U.S. dollars in late May due to the COVID-19 crisis, according to the cabinet.
Egypt's foreign exchange reserves have started to go up again, mounting to 38.2 billion U.S. dollars by the end of June, said the statement.
The country fully floated the exchange rate of its pound against the U.S. dollar in late 2016 as part of a three-year austerity-based economic reform program supported by a 12-billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which described the program as a success.
In late June, the IMF approved a 12-month 5.2-billion-dollar loan for Egypt to help the country cope with the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic. Enditem
