Egypt Watch

The World Bank approves $500 million loan for Egypt

The Minister of International Cooperation, Rania Al-Mashat, has said that the World Bank has approved new financing for Egypt, amounting to 500 million dollars, to support the country’s efforts to expand social protection networks. Al-Mashat’s statement added that the loan comes to support the lowest-income groups.

On Thursday, Egypt paid more than $318 million to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an instalment of a loan it took out in 2016, as it awaits the first instalment of a new loan from the fund in the next few days. The Executive Board of the IMF approved last Friday to grant Egypt a loan of three billion dollars over the next four years, with an immediate disbursement of $347 million.

According to experts, Egypt’s payments to the fund will far exceed the value of what it will receive from it over the next four years, at a time when it hopes that the loan will help the balance of payments and the public budget. Egypt must pay the IMF approximately $17.5 billion over the following four years. Egypt’s repayment obligations to the IMF are as follows: $3.7 billion in 2023; $6.2 billion in 2024; $5.1 billion in 2025; and $2.5 billion in 2026. Egypt is the second largest borrower from the IMF, after Argentina. Egypt’s debt is the highest in the Middle East and North Africa, equalling about 35.5% of the region’s total debt in 2020.