All eyes on the CBE, Saudi budget figures

The unveiling of Egypt’s austere FY2023/24 Budget and the reinvigorated privatisation drive will help to ease some concern among investors of reform progress. But the critical thing to watch will be next week’s monetary policy meeting. Alongside the need to raise interest rates sharply, policymakers’ comments will be scrutinised for a comment on the currency – if they stay quiet, it would raise the risk of Egypt suffering a messy balance of payments crisis and sovereign default. Elsewhere, public finances data from Saudi Arabia showed that the window for additional fiscal loosening is narrowing.