The Central Bank of Egypt has said its net international reserves have remained stable at $17.1bn in January. This is a marginal increase on the $17.05bn recorded in December and marks the first rise in reserves since last August.

The reserves total represents about 3.4 months of import coverage.

The stabilisation of reserves has been partly put down to the disbursement of a $2bn deposit from Saudi Arabia, which helped the bank conduct a foreign exchange auction of $1.5bn and the repayment of $700m in external debt owed to the Paris club, which is a group of 19 economies that help nations repay their debts.

Following the ousting of former president Mohamed Mursi on 3 July last year, Gulf states such as the UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia pledged billions of dollars of foreign aid to the North Africa country.

“GCC aid remains necessary to maintain macroeconomic stabilisation and we believe it will be made forthcoming to support the political transition in the first half of 2014 as necessary,” read a note from a report from US’ bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Egypt is planning to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in the first half of this year, following the referendum held in early January, which approved the newly amended constitution.