Economic conditions in Egypt have very much improved over the past three years since the government embarked on a comprehensive economic reform program, Egypt's central bank governor Tarek Amer said on Wednesday. Addressing a meeting of the Association of African Central Banks in the Red Sea resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh, Amer hailed President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi for making the critical decision to carry out the economic reforms after many years of poor economic performance. Amer said Egypt's foreign inflows have exceeded $120 billion since the signing of a three-year $12 billion loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2016. The agreement, part of an economic reform programme being carried out by the government, helped Egypt attract huge inflows and fostered foreign investors' confidence in the Egyptian economy, Amer added in his speech. It was the Egyptian government which developed the comprehensive reform program and determined its duration, Amer said, adding that Egypt sought the support of the IMF to restore international confidence in its economy. Egyptians would not have found the basic needs of medicine, fuel and food without these inflows, Amer added. The IMF approved at the end of June a fourth payment, worth $2.02 billion, of the loan, bringing the total received by Egypt from the IMF to around $8 billion. Amer said Egypt has over the past two years attracted foreign investments worth more than $38 billion, including $13 billion from the international bond market, as well as T-bills and exchange markets. *This story has been edited by Ahram Online.
