(Bloomberg) -- Egypt sold more Treasury bills than it targeted on Sunday, as rising yields spurred demand from foreign investors.
Overseas buyers scooped up about 8.5 billion pounds ($470 million) of 6-month and 12-month notes, almost half of the 17.7 billion pounds in T-bills sold by the Egyptian government, said Samy Khallaf, head of the Finance Ministry's public debt division. The targeted 13-billion-pound sale was exceeded to “accommodate” foreign demand, he said.
Overseas appetite has surged since authorities removed nearly all restrictions on the pound last year, helping end a hard currency crunch and securing a $12 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. The weakening pound helped push inflation to about 30 percent, prompting the central bank to raise interest rates by 5 percentage points since November.
On Sunday, the average yield on 6-month notes rose 62 basis points from the last sale to 21.032 percent, while that on the 12-month bills rose 66 points to 21.047 percent.
The central bank is scheduled to review interest rates on Thursday.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ahmed Feteha in Cairo at afeteha@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaa Shahine at asalha@bloomberg.net, Mark Williams, Steve Geimann
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