Egypt's economic reform program and the IMF loan

It has been a year-and-a-half since Egypt signed its Extended Fund Facility (EFF) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under which it receives $12 billion over a three-year period.
This week a delegation from the IMF was in Cairo for the third review of the government’s commitment to reform before disbursing the fourth tranche of the funding.

So far Egypt has received $6 billion, and it is set to receive $2 billion more if the review is positive.

Egypt has passed previous reviews with flying colours. “Macroeconomic stability and market confidence have been restored, growth has resumed, inflation has fallen, and the public debt ratio is expected to fall for the first time in nearly a decade,” said IMF Deputy Managing Director David Lipton this week at a conference organised by the IMF and the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) on “Inclusive Growth and Job Creation”.

In 2016, Lipton said, Egypt had been “at risk of instability”. However, his message now was that the government must encourage the private sector to invest more, export more and create more jobs.