The Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Jihad Azour, said that negotiations to complete the first and second reviews are still ongoing.
In a press conference on Wednesday, he assured that the program’s objectives and details that were agreed upon in December 2022 between the IMF and the Egyptian government have not changed.
Egypt has been significantly impacted by the war on Gaza, he said, causing a reduction for Egypt’s growth expectations which were reduced by 0.6 percent to three percent.
Azour added that the IMF team has been discussing the impact of the war on the country’s economy with the government, the policies that need to be applied to deal with these repercussions, and ways to combat inflation and the currency shortage crisis.
Additional financing is also a topic of discussion between the IMF and the government, he said, which is related to how impacted the country’s economy is as a result of the war and the various crises Egypt has been suffering from, as well as the financing gap, and the policies that can be applied during the leadership period.
After a delay of nearly a year, a delegation from the IMF visited Egypt last week to discuss the first and second reviews of Egypt’s three billion dollar loan program, and to discuss the new time frame for the loan as well as the details of the structural reform program and the performance of other economic indicators.
The IMF approved a loan to Egypt worth three billion dollars over 48 months.
Egypt received the first tranche of about $347 million in December 2022. It was scheduled to be received over four years, in nine tranches, in March and September of each year from 2023 to 2026.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
