The head of the International Monetary Fund on Saturday declared the IMF "would not give up, would not leave the table" until it had struck a loan deal with Egypt. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde declined to say when a deal could be struck but said she had met with Egyptian officials on the sideline of weekend IMF meetings in Washington. There have been repeated delays in concluding a proposed $4.8 billion loan deal due to political turmoil since a 2011 uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak. "I hope we continue the progress that we have made. It is a task and we will not give up, we will not leave the table, we have to continue the work and have to be of support to the Egyptian population," Lagarde told a news conference at the end of a meeting of the IMF's steering committee.
