Egypt receives $ 1.6 billion for a second tranche from the International Monetary Fund

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Egypt received the second tranche of the International Monetary Fund loan worth $ 1.6 billion. Egyptian Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said that the second tranche of the IMF loan had already arrived, in implementation of the credit preparedness agreement signed by Egypt in June, after the end of the first review of the economy’s performance.

This is the second tranche of a loan worth 5.2 billion dollars that was agreed upon between Egypt and the IMF to confront the repercussions of the “Corona” pandemic.

Egypt obtained the first installment of this loan, amounting to two billion dollars, last June. With that, the total amount she received from the loan came to $ 3.67 billion. The prominent Egyptian and international economist and member of the IMF board of directors, Mahmoud Mohieldin, criticized, in recent press statements, the excess of many developing countries, including Egypt, in external borrowing to face the repercussions of Corona. At the end of last June, Egypt’s external debt rose by 14.8%, on an annual basis, to $ 123.5 billion, compared to $ 108.7 billion at the end of June 2019.

The Central Bank of Egypt data showed, last October, that the external debt increased during only the last quarter of the past fiscal year by 12.2%. At the end of 2016, Egypt concluded an agreement with the IMF, according to which it obtained a loan of 12 billion dollars. However, this included a package of economic measures requested by the IMF, which included liberalizing the exchange rate, gradually eliminating energy subsidies, and applying value-added tax. What cast difficult life burdens on the majority of the Egyptian people.