Imports have been suffering from an acute shortage of foreign currency since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, partly because of a flight of dollars from Egyptian treasury markets and a drop in Russian and Ukrainian tourists.

The current account deficit declined to $2.96 billion from $5.79 in January-March and $5.13 billion in April-June a year earlier, the central bank data said.

Non-oil imports in April-June dropped by $3.84 billion from the Jan-March quarter to $16.69 billion. This compares to $16.74 billion in April-June 2021.

Tourism receipts increased to $2.56 billion from $1.75 billion a year earlier as travel recovered from the impact of COVID-19, even as Russian and Ukrainian tourists numbers fell off sharply after the Ukraine crisis.

Remittance payments from Egyptians working abroad climbed to $8.28 billion in April-June from $8.05 billion a year prior, while Suez Canal revenue rose to $1.91 from $1.56 billion.

The figures showed that outflow of portfolio investments related to the Ukraine war slowed to a net 3.74 billion from $14.75 billion in January-March. This compares to a net inflow of $2.76 billion a year earlier.

Net foreign direct investment rose to $1.59 billion from $427.2 million in April-June 2021, partly the result of the sales of state assets to Gulf investment funds. Egypt earned $4.08 billion in Jan-March of this year, partly from similar sales.

(Reporting by Mahmoud Mourad and Yasmin Hussein; Writing by Patrick Werr; Editing by Aidan Lewis and David Gregorio)