Industry experts hail CBE decision to float EGP

Industry experts praised on Thursday the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) decision to float the Egyptian pound against the US dollar.

Mohamed El Bahy, who chairs the taxes committee at the Federation of Egyptian Industries, said the liberalization of the exchange rate will help the Egyptian government control the market and eliminate the black market.

The decision will not have any effect on the inflation rate, he said, expecting more investments to be pumped into Egypt in the coming period.

Chairman of the Chamber of Metallurgical Industries Gamal el Garhy expected the prices of commodities and construction materials to go down, citing the iron price which fell to EGP 1,200 per tone following the decision.

More Gulf and foreign investments are expected to be injected into the Egyptian market in the coming period, he said.

Ahmed Gaber, the head of the Printing Chamber, said the floating decision is 'proper' but it was too late.

He further called on the Egyptian government to issue more decisions to eliminate manipulators on the black market.