Rising oil prices unlikely to affect Egypt the same way they did Jordan –Templeton’s Khatoun

The rise in oil prices is unlikely to affect Egypt the same way it did Jordan, Franklin Templeton Emerging Market Equity MD Bassel Khatoun tells Bloomberg in an interview (watch, runtime: 8:36). “Egypt has done a great job at being able to bring down inflation to its lowest level of about 11.6%, which has enabled the central bank to cut [interest] rates,” Khatoun said. He explains that the hikes in energy and electricity prices, which are expected to come at the start of the new fiscal year “have been widely positioned” in the past and that expected economic growth in Egypt should help balance out the impact of higher oil and energy prices.

As for the recent selloff in Egyptian stocks, Khatoun explained that it was “in line with the broader EM selloff where countries that have a higher degree of dependency on external borrowing did sell off.”