The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) delegation has arrived in Cairo on Monday to conduct the sixth and final review before disbursing the last $2bn tranche of a $12bn extended fund facility.
The visit lasts for 10 days, in which the IMF’s delegation will hold meetings with the leaders of the ministry of finance to discuss the results of the economic reform programme agree on the next steps of the programme, in addition to meeting with the leaders of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) to discuss future mechanism of cooperation.
An informed source told Daily News Egypt that the meeting of the IMF’s mission and leaders of ministries of finance and petroleum to discuss mechanisms of the forthcoming subsidy cut which is scheduled in June in framework of the state’s plan to reduce the bill of petroleum subsidies.
Petroleum products and electricity subsidies have cost the state EGP 150bn at the expense of other main sectors.
The source noted that the fund will discuss with officials ways of creating jobs for youth who enter the market that are estimated at about one million annually, denying any new taxes to be imposed in the current fiscal year 2019/20.
The main objective of this review is to strengthen some of the structural reforms that will help the economy to grow faster and to be led by the private sector, Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the IMF, Jihad Azour, told Daily News Egypt during the IMF’s spring meetings in Washington DC last month.
The three-year loan programme which began in November 2016, will be end in November and the final tranche is expected to be received in July, Minister of Finance Mohamed Moeit previously told Daily News Egypt.
Moeit revealed that the Egyptian government has not requested additional funding and that there is no intention to request more funding, explaining that cooperation with the IMF continues through technical missions and consultations, expecting by 2030 to see Egypt’s economy one of the largest 10 economies in the world.
Talking to Daily News Egypt during the IMF spring meetings, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said, “We are getting close to the end of that programme, and we very much hope that the next review, yet to come, will be completed satisfactorily.
Lagarde assured that the IMF remains available to continue to help Egypt go forward in order to maintain stability and to ensure that growth continues to support the Egyptian economy, thereby creating jobs.
For his part, Governor of the CBE, Tarek Amer, previously told Daily News Egypt during the IMF’s spring meetings in Washington last month that Egypt and the fund are considering possible future cooperation, stressing that it will not be in the form of a new loan.
