Egypt will offer 6.5 billion Egyptian pounds ($1.1 billion) in treasury bills today as it resumes negotiations with the International Monetary Fund for a loan. The nation’s dollar bonds fell for a second day. The North African nation will seek bids for six- and 12- month (EGTBY12) securities valued at 3 billion pounds and 3.5 billion pounds, respectively, according to central bank data on Bloomberg. It sold similar-maturity bills last week at average yields of 14.799 percent and 15.768 percent, respectively. An IMF technical committee is back in the country to discuss the loan and an 18-month economic program proposed by the government, Al Ahram newspaper reported today, citing Finance Minister Momtaz el-Saieed. The program focuses on Egypt’s budget deficit and revamping tax and customs laws, and won’t have a negative impact on the country’s poor, the newspaper said. Today’s sale is the first of a plan to raise 150 billion pounds in the quarter that ends in June, which marks the end of Egypt’s fiscal year. Yields on one-year notes have surged 518 basis points, or 5.18 percentage points, since the start of the country’s anti-government protests in January 2011. The yield on the country’s 5.75 percent dollar bonds due in 2020 advanced 1 basis point to 6.49 percent at 12:24 p.m. in Cairo, according to prices compiled by Bloomberg. That’s the highest level on a closing basis in more than two weeks. The Egyptian pound was little changed at 6.0395 a dollar. To contact the reporter on this story: Ahmed A Namatalla in Cairo at anamatalla@bloomberg.net; To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Maedler at cmaedler@bloomberg.net

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