Egypt Said to Begin International Bond Roadshows Next Week

(Bloomberg) -- Egypt will begin testing appetite for its debt in international bond markets next week with a Jan. 17 Dubai roadshow for a long-awaited Eurobond issuance, as the government seeks to raise funds two months after floating the currency.

Officials want to gauge the likely response from investors before announcing the planned sale amount, a government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the details are yet to be made public. Finance Minister Amr El-Garhy said in November that the government was seeking up to $6 billion from Eurobond sales in 2017.

The issuance comes at a critical time for Egypt. The central bank has been seeking to boost foreign reserves since the Nov. 3 floating of the pound -- a step that helped seal a $12 billion International Monetary Fund loan deal, and which had been eagerly sought by investors wary of returning to the Egyptian market.

Egypt has one of the Middle East’s biggest budget deficits but as it looks to curb spending the government has to allay the concerns of a population of 92 million, around half of whom live near or below the poverty line.

Since the central bank freed the exchange rate, the pound has lost more than half its value. Meanwhile, inflation has been climbing. Core consumer prices rose almost 21 percent in November, further testing the patience of a nation that has lived through more than five years of economic decline and insecurity since the 2011 ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

To contact the reporters on this story: Abdel Latif Wahba in Cairo at alatifwahba@bloomberg.net, Tarek El-Tablawy in Cairo at teltablawy@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaa Shahine at asalha@bloomberg.net, Mark Williams, Stuart Biggs