Cairo – Mubasher: Egypt's Finance Minister, Mohamed Maait, said his country hopes to obtain the first tranche of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan valued at $750 million this month.

During a recent press conference, the minister added the IMF estimates the financing gap over four years, the duration of the programme, at $16 billion, equivalent to $4 billion per year.

In October 2022, the IMF staff and the Egyptian authorities reached a staff-level agreement on comprehensive economic policies and reforms to be supported by a 46-month extended fund facility (EFF) arrangement of $3 billion.

The IMF arrangement is forecast to catalyse a large multi-year financing package, including about $5 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2022/2023.

Moreover, Egyptian authorities requested financing under the newly created Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF), which could unlock up to an additional $1 billion for Egypt.

Earlier in October 2022, Egypt's Minister of Planning, Hala El-said, revealed that the Egyptian economy grew faster than expected by 6.60% in FY21/22, compared to 3.30% in the previous year, noting that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) exceeded the IMF’s expectation and grew by 5.90%, the highest rate since 2008.

During FY22/23, the Egyptian government forecasts the GDP to grow by 5.50%. This comes after the state has lowered its expectations by 0.2% given the latest global developments.