Former Governor, Central Bank Of Brazil
Search every verified Tarek Amer interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Tarek Amer, governor of the Central Bank of Egypt, said in February 2020 that his key concern was global economic events, citing Egypt's integration into the international community. He noted that the country was tested in 2018 during the trade war, losing twelve billion dollars in funds, but stated that the loss did not affect Egypt's program or indicators, with reserves, currency stability, growth, and inflation remaining steady. Amer acknowledged that liberalized foreign exchange markets create risks of rapid capital inflows and outflows. He said the central bank is prepared to manage such volatility, drawing on experience from crises in 2008, 2011, 2013, 2016, and 2018. Amer stated that the bank maintains buffers to prevent further shocks to the domestic economy.
“My key concern is the global economic events because now we become a part of the international community — we were tested in 2018 when there was this trade war and many emerging markets were affected and we lost a lot of funds in 2018 but it did not affect our program or our indicators.”
“You've liberalized foreign exchange markets — the markets are open here in Egypt for international investors — but that creates with it the risk that capital can come in very aggressively and the capital can go out very quickly.”
“It happened in 2018 — we lost twelve billion dollars for our economy. This is a substantial amount of money but nobody felt anything: our reserves were intact, our currency was stable, our growth continued and inflation continued to go down.”
“We are prepared for this — we have experience at the central bank in managing this kind of investments over the last 20 years: we've seen 2008, we've seen 2011, our revolution, we've seen 2013, we've seen the reforms in 2016, we've seen the emerging markets crisis in 2018.”
Tarek Hassan Amer, governor of the Central Bank of Egypt, discusses the Egyptian and global economies.
Sign in to search the full transcript archive, filter by topic, and access every quote from Tarek Amer.