Egypt's president Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has appointed Tarek Amer as the new governor of the Central Bank following the resignation of Hisham Ramez, Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported on Wednesday.
During his tenure, Ramez tried to halt the growing illicit parallel currency market and attempted to mitigate pressure on the value of the Egyptian pound against foreign currencies.
Ramez imposed a cap on dollar deposits of $50,000 per month and $10,000 per day to restrict the black market, which has thrived in the aftermath of the 2011 revolution.
He was widely criticised for leaving the pound overvalued at the expense of the reserves which declined to $16.3 billion, just above the three months' safety level.
The pound currently stands at 7.93 to the dollar compared to 6.7 in February 2013 when Ramez started his term.
Since taking the governor position in February 2013, Ramez was expected to maintain the monetary policies of the former governor, Farouk El-Oqda.
Ramez will remain the governor of the central bank of Egypt until the end of his term on 26th of November.
The new CBE governor, Amer, is currently deputy governor at the bank, and formerly the CEO of Egypt's largest state-owned bank The National Bank of Egypt (NBE).
"Today’s announcement suggests a further devaluation of the pound – something we think is necessary to revive the economy – is likely," said London-based Capital Economics in a research note on Wednesday.
