CAIRO: US Senator and Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee John Kerry expressed confidence and support for the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces’ oversight of Egypt’s political transition and called for a focus on saving the Egyptian economy.
While visiting Cairo on Saturday, Kerry argued that a deal with the International Monetary Fund for an infusion of cash into the Egyptian economy is needed to “portray a message of confidence that will bring investors to the country” and “bring tourists to the country."
Kerry had discussed the economy with Field Marshall Tantawi earlier in the day. “I think it is fair to say that the Field Marshall and others made it clear that…there is a need for an infusion of cash into the Egyptian governing process,” he said. “I think it is very important that Egypt works with the IMF.”
He described meeting expatriate Egyptians around the world who “are not investing as much as they would like to be,” adding that “sending a clear, and constant message with respect to the IMF, movement towards fiscal reform, and the kind of business climate that is going to exist here is critical."
Following the economic downturn after the uprising, then-Finance Minister Samir Radwan negotiated a loan with the IMF for $3 billion, but turned it down in June. Reuters reported that this decision was “widely believed to be due to opposition from the army.
In November, the then-Finance Minister Hazem El-Beblawi, who was recently replaced, said Egypt would again seek the loan, but the deal was later suspended.
Last month, Egypt’s foreign reserves slid by $1.93 billion, and in the past week Mumtaz Said was named the newest finance minister. The state of the IMF loan is still unclear.
Despite the economic instability caused by changes in the status of the loan, Kerry said he believes that SCAF is keeping Egypt on the right track.
“The military, in my judgment, behaved in a remarkable way by protecting the rights of people to be heard in the way that they were in Tahrir Square,” Kerry said.
"Have mistakes been made? Yes. But Egypt has had its sovereignty and its identity protected by the efforts of SCAF,” Kerry said, adding that “there are many countries where a military would never have moved to provide the kind of protection that this military has provided…You can see what’s happening in Syria today.”
“Fundamentally,” he said, “they [SCAF] have been safeguarding the revolution.”
