Egypt seeks first IMF loan installment this month

Mohamed Ahmed Maait, Egypt’s finance minister, speaks during a Bloomberg Television interview in New York, US, on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022 [Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images]

Egypt hopes to receive the first $750 million installment of a recently approved International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan before the end of the year, the Finance Minister, Mohamed Maait, announced yesterday.

The minister added that the state had requested 25 per cent of the $3 billion loan to be issued this month. The deal between Cairo and the IMF had been signed in October.

“The IMF estimated the financing gap over 4 years, the duration of the program, at about $16 billion, or $4 billion each year,” Maait pointed out, warning that Egypt’s total deficit for the current fiscal year 2022-2023 would deviate from the “6.1 per cent planned by the government as a result of increased spending pressures and the local currency devaluation.”

Since Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi became president in 2014, the North African country has been borrowing from financial institutions to revive its economy.

Egypt’s external debt amounts to over $155.7 billion.

READ: Egypt clinches $3bn funding deal with IMF

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