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Egypt receives final $1bn portion of World Bank loan

March 8, 2018 at 9:15 am

World Bank in Washington, US [pingnews.com/Flickr]

Egypt has received the third and final $1 billion tranche of a $3 billion loan from the World Bank, the Minister of Investment and International Cooperation announced yesterday. Sahar Nasr told a press conference that the disbursal is the last in a series of three annual development policy loans issued by the bank from 2015 to 2017. The loan was agreed by the bank in late 2015.

The cabinet, Nasr explained, has also approved an agreement, signed in January, to disburse the third and final $500 million tranche of a $1.5 billion loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB). In November 2015, Egypt signed an agreement with the AfDB for the loan to support the nationwide economic reform programme. The loan has a 25-year repayment period, a five-year grace period and interest of 1.2 per cent.

Nasr pointed out that Egypt has also received $150 million from the G7 countries, as well as $250 million from Germany and $170 million from France. She didn’t provide further details on the nature of the disbursals.

Read: Egypt’s external debt rises by 41%

Egypt has been negotiating billions of dollars in aid from various lenders to help revive an economy battered by political upheaval since the 2011 revolution, and to ease a dollar shortage that has crippled imports and hampered recovery.

In November 2016, Egypt won a $12 billion IMF loan for a three-year bailout programme that aimed at reviving the struggling economy, bringing down public debt and controlling inflation while seeking to protect the poor.

In a similar context, the Egyptian Minister of Trade and Industry, Tarek Qabil, announced yesterday that the ministry has approved the establishment of an Egyptian-Russian industrial zone in the country’s north eastern province of Port Said, with an investment worth $7 billion. The agreement came following extended negotiations with the Russians on all the terms, Qabil said. He added that it will be presented to the parliament in Cairo soon.

Read: Foreign direct investment in Egypt down 15.5%