By: Mostafa Adel
Cairo – Mubasher: A delegation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is visiting Egypt at present and examining the government’s commitment to its economic reform programme, an informed source at the Ministry of Finance told Mubasher on Wednesday.
This visit comes ahead of the IMF’s second tranche of a $12 billion loan, the sourced, who asked not to be identified because the information is private, said, adding that IMF will review the government’s commitment to trimming public spending and boosting revenues.
The second tranche of the IMF loan will be worth $1.25 billion and is slated for March 2017, the source added.
The IMF approved providing Egypt with a $2.75-billion tranche under the $12 billion loan, which will be repaid over a three-year period.
Egypt had presented an economic reform programme to the IMF in which it targeted growth of 5%-6% on the short term. The programme should reduce unemployment to 10% by 2018-2019 and to 6.7% by 2020-2021.
Programme reform also included cutting down on energy subsidies over a timeframe of 3 to 5 years, starting in 2015.
Energy subsidies have been reduced to EGP 35 billion this year from EGP 51 billion last year.
Translated by: Nada Adel Sobhi
