CAIRO: The International Monetary Funds (IMF) agreed to grant Egypt $500 million in soft loans. Egyptian representatives will travel to Washington DC this week to discuss the deal during the annual IMF spring meeting. Sources report that Egypt has set an initial long-term soft loan of $500 million at an interest rate of no more than 1% with a grace period up to three years, according to the Global Arab Network. The decision came after a delegation from the IMF led by Deputy Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department Ratna Sahay travelled to Cairo for a week-long visit, meeting senior officials form the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of International Cooperation and the Central Bank. The visit aimed to update technical discussions focussing on recent political and economic development, and to show the IMF's commitment “to the dialogue with the Egyptian authorities and their efforts to promote inclusive growth, employment and macro- and socio-economic stability,” declared the IMF in an official statement. The IMF also warned Egyptian authorities that the country's economic growth will be far less consistent than the government's optimistic forecast. Following talks with the IMF, Prime Minister Essam Sharaf declared he will meet Egyptian American Prof. Farouk el-Baz to discuss the implementation of the “Development Corridor” on Tuesday. This colossal development project involves the construction of a 1,200 km (750 miles) long eight-lane superhighway along a strip of the Egyptian western desert, in order to boost the country's system of transportation. This will include a water pipeline linking the superhighway to the southern Toshka Lakes, railways and 800 km east-west connections to link the highway to several major Egyptian cities. According to the scientist, the projects will create a range of opportunities for the new generation, opening doors to new arable lands in reclaimed from the desert. It will also enhance the expansion of the job market, create new possibilities for touristic routes and prompt the birth of almost 200 new towns and roughly half a million rural villages along the superhighway. Sharaf's interim government already accepted the implementation of the plan, reported news agency UPI on 1 March. The total cost of the project is estimated around $24 billion. This is not the first monumental development project that Egyptian authorities set out to implement in the Western desert. Plans to create a southern valley parallel to the Nile date back to the early '80s. The Toshka Valley project involved channeling water from the artificial Lake Nasser and inundate a near desert valley around Toshka. This would reclaim land from the desert and create new agricultural and residential zoning. This project recently suffered a lethal blow when Egyptian general persecutors rule the freezing of 100,000 acres around Toshka, owned by Saudi Prince al-Waleed Bin Talal's holding KADCO, on Monday. According to Professor of African Studies at Leeds University Ray Bush, the Toshka project “highlighted the fantasy of a flawed national agricultural strategy and subordination of policy to external financial control, asset stripping and state subsidy to local crony investors.” Persecutors declared that the land was sold illegally to Bin Talal by Agriculture Minister Yussef Wali, and outright exempted from taxes and other contributions, in 1998. Persecutors ordered that also Wali's assets be frozen. In related news, Prince Bin Talal gave up his claim to the confiscated land, saying he would not go to international arbitration to contest Egyptian public persecutors' ruling, on Tuesday. BM
