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Egyptian pound steady at official auction, on black market

 Egypt's central bank kept the pound steady at 7.53 to the dollar at a foreign exchange auction on Thursday, while the currency was largely stable on the black market.

The central bank has held the official exchange rate steady for more than three months since letting the pound weaken at the beginning of 2015. This weakening and other measures have helped reduce black market trading significantly.

In Thursday's auction, the bank said it had offered $40 million and sold $37.8 million at a cut-off price of LE7.5301 per dollar, unchanged from Tuesday's rate.

On the black market, the pound was trading at 7.67 LE to the dollar on Thursday, a trader said, virtually unchanged from the LE7.675 on Tuesday.

Black market traders say volumes have fallen sharply since the central bank's drive to stamp out their transactions, including the introduction in February of a cap on the amount of dollars that can be deposited in banks.

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