Cairo - Mubasher: The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) is considering a proposal to launch a new initiative for settling up to EGP 10 million debts of the defaulting companies.

The proposal, presented by a number of banks operating in the Egyptian market, entails extending the period of the initiative to range between 12 to 18 months, local newspaper Almal reported.   

The move came after the central bank asked lenders for providing a detailed report on the existing initiative set to end on 31 December 2018, including the number of beneficiaries, their debts and major obstacles.

In June the CBE had exempted defaulters from accrued unpaid interest worth EGP 16.8 billion provided they would commit to completely pay their debts obtained on 31 December 2017 by no later than 31 December 2018.