On Thursday, it sold 39.4 million dollars at a cut-off price of 7.7301 pounds to the dollar, unchanged from Tuesday. The official rate is still far from the black market, which was around 8.57 pounds to the dollar on Thursday, almost unchanged from Tuesday's rate of 8.58. The country has been starved of foreign currency since a popular uprising in 2011 ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak and drove tourists and foreign investors away. Egypt's reserves have tumbled from $36 billion in 2011 to$16.4 billion, and the country has been rationing dollars through weekly dollar auctions to banks, keeping the pound artificially strong.
On Thursday, it sold 39.4 million dollars at a cut-off price of 7.7301 pounds to the dollar, unchanged from Tuesday. The official rate is still far from the black market, which was around 8.57 pounds to the dollar on Thursday, almost unchanged from Tuesday's rate of 8.58. The country has been starved of foreign currency since a popular uprising in 2011 ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak and drove tourists and foreign investors away. Egypt's reserves have tumbled from $36 billion in 2011 to$16.4 billion, and the country has been rationing dollars through weekly dollar auctions to banks, keeping the pound artificially strong.