Egypt pays back $2.5 billion deposit to Qatar: central bank official

Egypt has paid back $2.5 billion that Qatar deposited with it to help prop up the Egyptian central bank's hard currency reserves, a central bank official said on Friday night, as the Qatari foreign minister arrived in Cairo for Arab League talks.

The payment brings the amount Egypt has returned to Qatar to $6 billion, leaving $500 million outstanding, which the official said would be paid back in the second half of 2015.

Qatar helped support the Egyptian economy in the aftermath of the 2011 uprising that overthrew Hosni Mubarak, but relations have soured since the ouster of President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood last year.