The National Bank of Ethiopia cited “technical issues” and provided no indication that the cancellation was linked to IMF policy
Borkena
Toronto—The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) on Tuesday announced that it had cancelled its scheduled forex auction.
The auction was supposed to take place on June 9.
The bank explained why it was cancelled this time after nearly two years of the practice following the introduction of a market-based forex regime as part of macroeconomic reforms in July last year.
“It has been cancelled due to unforeseen technical issues,” the bank said.
However, it did not provide a timeline for when the auction would resume. “Further information regarding any scheduled auction will be communicated in due course,” it added.
Notably, the cancellation came after weeks of intensive meetings between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Ethiopian government officials from May 6 to May 20 this year.
The IMF released a statement on June 3 announcing a staff-level agreement to provide Ethiopia with an additional US$468 million under the Extended Credit Facility. The funding is part of the US$3.4 billion package that the IMF announced in 2024 after attaching a series of conditions, although these were not officially announced by the Ethiopian government, including the devaluation of the Ethiopian currency.
However, it remains unclear whether the cancellation of the forex auction is directly related to the discussions between Ethiopian officials and IMF staff last month.
The most recent forex auction announcement was made on May 27.
Days earlier, the bank had announced measures liberalizing regulatory rules for commercial banks in handling forex transactions.
The last announcement for the Forex auction was on May 27.
Days before that, it announced measures liberalizing regulatory rules for commercial banks in handling forex transactions.
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