citigroup inc predicts egypt will hold off on devaluing its currency until at least september as the prospect of bumper tourism revenue and sales of state assets ease the pressure on the economy “we’ve reached a little bit of a peak pessimism when it comes to egypt” luis costa the global head of emergingmarket sovereign credit at the us bank said in an interview the turnaround in sentiment follows signs that the government is stepping up efforts to sell or partially list stateheld firms and an expected rebound in egypt’s tourism industry to its prepandemic levels by easing the nation’s foreigncurrency crunch and allaying investor concerns of a debt restructuring the effort has prompted citigroup to “establish a more positive view” of the egyptian pound and dollar bonds in the short term costa said derivatives traders have unwound bets that authorities would let the pound fall sharply again in the coming months after it lost half its value following a series of devaluations since march last year any decision to weaken the currency will probably be made in september when the international monetary fund is due to carry out a review of a 3 billion rescue program or a month later during the imf and world bank annual meetings in the moroccan city of marrakesh costa said “this summer season can be an important shortterm stabilizer until we start getting serious reviews again in september and october” said costa who is also the head of strategy in central  eastern europe middle east and africa while the currency will likely remain “reasonably stable” in the next two months citigroup expects it to weaken to as much as 36 against the dollar by enddecember and 37 next year said the londonbased strategist it’s presently in a “neutral valuation range” he said the pound’s threemonth contract in the nondeliverable forwards market has risen almost 1 this month to 332 against the dollar on thursday it gained by 9 in may its best month since february 2017 in the spot market the pound has been languishing around 309 since march egypt needs to unlock more financing from abroad to clear a backlog of foreigncurrency requests from importers and other companies billions of dollars in promised funding from gulf arab nations have yet to materialize the risk premium on egypt’s distressed debt has narrowed about 350 basis points since reaching a record high of 1486 over us treasuries in midmay when the government struggled to regain access to external financing “a weaker egyptian pound is not necessarily unlocking this extra availability of dollars on the domestic side” costa said “that has to come from fdi deals” egyptian officials have said the country won’t default on any obligations and it expects more state assets to be sold in the coming weeks authorities have also been trying to improve the investment climate including by making it easier for foreigners to set up shop while working to boost privatesector participation “the government now has to focus on making a least a few deals come through and to give the markets the perception that the privatization program is at least in the long term at least 50 doable” costa said