An International Monetary Fund delegation is set to arrive in Cairo Tuesday to negotiate a US$4.8 billion loan requested by Egypt in August, Planning and International Cooperation Minister Ashraf al-Araby was quoted as saying Monday. State-run newspaper Al-Akhbar quoted Araby as saying that the IMF delegation would meet Prime Minister Hesham Qandil to discuss the terms of the loan, which would be announced after an agreement is reached. Negotiations are expected to take “more than two weeks,” the minister said. At a press conference in Cairo in August, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the agreement includes a set of regulations that would be applied by the Egyptian government. Qandil, speaking at the same event, said the loan interest rate would be 1.1 percent. Araby said the agreement would be approved by the IMF board by the end of this year. An official source told state-run paper Al-Ahram last week that the government has prepared an economic reform program that aims to reduce the budget deficit by rationalizing expenditures and increasing tax revenues. Araby said infrastructure projects including electricity, transportation and roads come first in the list of projects that would benefit from the loan. He added that the government could dispense a part of the loan in case the economy recovers. The goal of getting a loan from the IMF is to alleviate the pressure on the state budget, according to the planning minister. The estimated deficit in the budget in the current fiscal year is estimated at about LE145 billion, while the actual deficit last year exceeded LE170 billion.
