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Al-Ahram Weekly 24 - 30 June 1999 Issue No. 435 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 24 - 30 June 1999 Issue No. 435
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Interview Travel Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters Dollar up
AFTER less than a month of stabilisation, the dollar exchange rate escalated throughout last week and reached LE3.5. This came after members of the foreign exchange division in the Federation of Chambers of Commerce made a gentleman's agreement last month with the Central Bank of Egypt to stabilise the exchange rate at LE3.47.During the two to three weeks following this agreement, the exchange rate was stable until the beginning of last week when it suddenly rose, reaching the highest level since the government decided to liberalise exchange rates at the beginning of the decade. But Cairo newspapers reported last Monday that the rate steadied in the range of 3.45 to 3.47.
The high demand on the dollar last week tempted some exchange companies to violate the agreement and trade dollars at higher rates, market experts said.
The exchange companies themselves attributed this increase in part to the fact that there are some individuals who make the rounds every day of different exchange companies buying large amounts of dollars, draining dollars from the market because they have a vested interest in tampering with dollar prices.
This is not the first time that the dollar exchange rate has reached worrying levels. Since November 1998, the exchange rate has been fluctuating. The surge in dollar exchange rates is partly the result of the drop in the volume of foreign reserves in the Central Bank from $20 billion in March 1998 to around $18.5 billion at the end of March this year.
Regional oil exhibition
THE INSTITUTE for International Research (IIR) will expand its Cairo-based oil and gas exhibition to serve the entire Middle East and Africa.The second Middle East and Africa Oil and Gas Exhibition (MEAOGE) will be held in September 2000 at the Cairo International Conference Centre. Representatives from oil companies in Saudi Arabia, Libya and Egypt are expected to participate in the exhibition, making it the first, and only, show of its kind to actively provide a stable business environment from which to approach the emerging African markets.
The IIR staged the first oil and gas exhibition in 1998 which was attended by more than 3,000 representatives from international oil companies.
MEAOGE will be held alongside the Middle East and African Power Exhibition, the second international exhibition for the power and electricity industries. "This will enable the interaction between the closely-linked power generation industries," said John Hassett, project manager at IIR exhibitions.
