Egypt strikes expanded $8bn deal with the IMF
Al Jazeera
The deal comes as the central bank said it would let the Egyptian pound trade freely.
Egypt has signed an expanded $8bn deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Egypt’s Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly has said.
The new agreement announced on Wednesday is an expansion of the $3bn, 46-month Extended Fund Facility that the IMF struck with Egypt back in December 2022, which was predicated on the shift to a more flexible exchange-rate system.
The deal comes as the central bank said it would let the pound currency trade freely and announced an interest-rate hike of 600 basis points in a bid to stabilise the economy.
As part of the new deal, Egypt will also receive a loan of about $1.2bn from a separate facility that promotes environmental sustainability, Madbouly said.
The December 2022 programme had stalled when Egypt reverted to keeping its pound at a tightly managed rate, and amid delays to an ambitious programme to divest state assets and boost the role of the private sector.
