COVID-19 Latest
World|business|August 11, 2016 / 04:26 PM
Egypt reaches initial $12 bn loan agreement with the IMF

AKIPRESS.COM - IMFEgypt has reached an initial agreement with the International Monetary Fund on a loan designed to help it revive its struggling economy, according to a senior Egyptian official.

The Arab country had sought a $12 billion loan over three years. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the agreement hasn’t been announced, declined to share details about the staff-level deal, Bloomberg reports.

Finance Minister Amr El-Garhy and the IMF delegation in Cairo declined to comment. Central bank Governor Tarek Amer didn’t immediately comment. Egyptian leaders have scheduled a joint news conference with the IMF at noon in Cairo, the cabinet said in a message to reporters.

Egypt’s benchmark EGX 30 Index rose 0.8 percent to 8,360.71 as of 11 a.m. in Cairo, its highest intraday level since July 2015. The Egyptian pound’s 12-month non-deliverable forwards fell 1.2 percent to 12.45 per dollar, its weakest level since Bloomberg started tracking the contracts in 2007.

Egyptian officials have said a deal with the IMF would help restore confidence in the economy, which has been hurt by years of instability and unrest since the 2011 ouster of Hosni Mubarak.

The government’s economic revival program includes plans to introduce value-added taxation, cut electricity subsidies and curb wage increases. Economists expect the the central bank to devalue the local pound currency or adopt a flexible exchange rate regime to end a dollar crunch that has hampered economic activity.

All rights reserved

© AKIpress News Agency - 2001-2024.

Republication of any material is prohibited without a written agreement with AKIpress News Agency.

Any citation must be accompanied by a hyperlink to akipress.com.

Our address:

299/5 Chingiz Aitmatov Prosp., Bishkek, the Kyrgyz Republic

e-mail: english@akipress.org, akipressenglish@gmail.com;

Follow us:

Log in


Forgot your password? - recover

Not registered yet? - sign-up

Sign-up

I have an account - log in

Password recovery

I have an account - log in