New foreign exchange regime bearing fruit

For the fourth successive day in a row, Prime Minister Atef Ebeid yesterday continued his meetings with the Economic Ministerial Group responsible for applying the new exchange regime which aims to stabilise the exchange rate .

Later in the day, Ebeid, along with Minister of Economy and Foreign Trade Youssef Boutros Ghali, held a meeting with the board and directors and mamagers of various branches of the Bank of Alexandria.

Following the meeting, Ebeid announced that reports from senior banking officials stress the success of the new regime, which has now been in force for four days.

The PM also referred to the success of Egypt's banking system and senior management in attracting large amounts of foreign currency into the banks in order to meet the demands of local industry.

The Minister of Economy stressed the role of the forex bureaux de change in applying the new financial regulations at all their outlets.

In a related development, the head of the Foreign Exchange division at the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce (FECC), Mohamed Hassan el-Abyad, yesterday said that the bureaux de change are fully committed to and happy with the new regime.

El-Abyad predicts more stability in the coming period, adding that the volume of dealings inside bureaux de change following the introduction of the new regime has already increased by 40 per cent.