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Egyptian pound

Currency of Egypt

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  • 4 chapters

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Each pound (Arabic: junayh, جُنَيْه) is divided into 100 piastres (Arabic: qirsh, قرش; abbreviation: "PT", short for "piastre tarif").

Each pound was also historically divided into 1,000 milliemes (مليم ; French: millième, abbreviated to m or mill). Since July 6, 2022, the 10- and 20-pound notes have been made out of polymer plastic paper.

History

At the beginning of the 19th century, Egypt and Turkey shared a common currency, the Ottoman piastre, divided into 40 paras. However, under Muhammad Ali, Egypt started to issue its own coinage, and in 1834, by which time Egypt was now nominally independent from Ottoman rule, a decree was issued, adopting an exclusively Egyptian monetary system whereby Egypt went into a silver and gold bimetallic standard based on the Maria Theresa thaler rated at 20 piastres. The Maria Theresa thaler was a popular silver trade coin in the region around that time.

In the wake of this currency reform, Egypt minted a gold coin known as the bedidlik, equal to 100 piastres, and a silver rial coin of 20 piastres corresponding to the Maria Theresa thaler. In 1839, a piastre contained 1.146 grams of silver, and meanwhile the British gold sovereign was rated at 97.5 piastres. While 100 Egyptian piastres and the bedidlik coin were referred to as a pound in the English-speaking world, this was not the principal unit in the new Egyptian monetary system of 1834. Reference to an Egyptian pound unit of account appeared in 1884 on a E£50 promissory note signed by General Gordon at the Siege of Khartoum, but it wasn't until the next year in 1885 that this unit of account would become the official unit.

Meanwhile, back in 1840, despite Egypt's separate coinage, it was agreed under the Turkish-Egyptian treaty dated that same year, that the Turkish and Egyptian coins should nevertheless maintain equal value. However, in 1844, the Ottoman piastre was devalued in conjunction with the creation of a new Ottoman lira unit, and Egypt did not follow suit. Hence the Egyptian and Turkish units split from each other in value, with the Egyptian unit continuing its exchange value of 97.5 piastres to the pound sterling.

In 1885, Egypt went into a purely gold standard, and the Egyptian pound unit, known as the gineih, was introduced at E£1 = 7.4375 grams of fine gold. This unit was chosen on the basis of the gold content in the British gold sovereign and maintaining the exchange value of 97.5 piastres to the pound sterling, and it replaced the Egyptian piastre (qersh) as the chief unit of currency. This reform resulted in the Maria Theresa thaler being adjusted to 21 piastres, with 20 piastres now being rated at 5 French francs, and the foreign exchange rates were fixed by force of law for the important currencies which had become acceptable in the settlement of internal transactions. It wasn't however until 1899 that banknotes started to appear with the word "pounds" on them, written in English. Meanwhile, the piastre continued to circulate as 1⁄100 of a pound, the para was discontinued in 1909, and the piastre was divided into tenths (عشر القرش 'oshr el-qirsh). These tenths were renamed milliemes (malleem) in 1916.

The Egyptian pound was also used in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan between 1899 and 1956, and Cyrenaica when it was under British occupation and later an independent emirate between 1942 and 1951. It also circulated in Mandatory Palestine from 1918 to 1927, when the Palestine pound was introduced.

Then, at the outbreak of World War I, with the gold specie standard being suspended in the UK, the Egyptian pound used a sterling peg of one pound and sixpence sterling (£1 0s 6d) to one Egyptian pound. Inverted, this gives E£0.975 for one pound sterling.

This exchange value of 97.5 piastres to the pound sterling continued until the early 1960s when Egypt devalued slightly and switched to a peg to the United States dollar, at a rate of E£1 = US$2.3.

Like many countries in the Middle East, Egypt has attempted to maintain a peg with the US dollar. Between 2018 and 2021 the peg was targeted at US$1 to E£16. In 2022 the Egyptian pound fell 40% against the dollar. In 2024 it fell substantially and by 2025 the rate was over E£40 to US$1.

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