China expands currency swap with Egypt as trade ties reach new heights

On Sep 5, 2026

Egypt’s expanded currency swap with China may help bring the yuan into wider use in trade and investment, but experts say any reduced reliance on the US dollar will not happen in a hurry.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi this week backed greater use of their currencies, while linking closer financial ties to plans for new factories, energy projects and digital infrastructure.

A joint statement released on Wednesday during Xi’s state visit to Cairo also envisions building Egypt up as a regional industrial and logistics hub, leveraging Chinese technology transfers and investment to anchor Cairo’s role within the expanded Brics emerging economies bloc as a gateway for regional and global markets. However, analysts said whether genuine domestic capacity would increase depended on Egypt’s negotiation of the terms.

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Cairo already has a 30 billion yuan (US$4.47 billion) swap arrangement with Beijing and has borrowed through a panda bond issued in China’s domestic market. Whether Egyptian and Chinese companies use the yuan regularly will be the main test of the currency push.

The People’s Bank of China and the Central Bank of Egypt renewed the swap in June, extending it for three years and increasing its value from 18 billion yuan, also known as the renminbi.

In their statement, Xi and el-Sisi “welcomed the renewal of the local currency swap agreement and the expansion of its scale”, and encouraged Chinese and Egyptian financial institutions to support industrial and development investment, infrastructure and green and digital projects.

John Calabrese, a non-resident senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said “the reference to yuan use is probably significant”.

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