The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission to Egypt, Celine Allard, has said that the IMF staff and the Egyptian government held fruitful discussions on the economic policies and reforms to be supported through a new loan from the Fund.

Egyptian government spokesman, Nader Saad, has said that discussions will continue in the coming weeks to reach an agreement at the expert level and then submit it for final approval. Egypt obtained two loans from the Fund during the past six years, the first in 2016, worth $12 billion, and the second in 2020, worth $8 billion. Among the Fund’s conditions for lending was the flotation of the Egyptian pound.

A research paper by Timothy Kaldas, a fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, said that Egypt’s largest loan from the Fund, worth $12 billion, had failed to achieve its primary objectives, including facilitating inclusive private sector-led growth, reducing unemployment, and attracting foreign direct investment. Kaldas added that the stability of macroeconomic indicators only contributed to attracting capital to the Egyptian debt trade. He also explained that the poverty rate reached 29.7%, while the non-oil private sector contracted for 63 of the past 72 months.