CAIRO: Egypt's finance ministry announced over the weekend that it would receive billions of dollars in loans from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the near future. Minister of Finance Hazem el-Beblawi said that another $500 million would also come in from the Arab Monetary Fund. “There are talks about a package coming from Arab countries, from Saudi Arabia, from the Emirates. We are under discussion, but both of them have presented proposals of a couple of billion dollars each,” Egyptian Finance Minister Hazem el-Beblawi told Reuters last month. El-Beblawi stated that he expects that the deal will be finalized before the end of the year. Egypt is facing a deficit of around 8 percent of its GDP for this fiscal year. Foreign investment and tourism in Egypt has dwindled through a prolonged period of political uncertainty after the uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak earlier this year. In June, Egypt turned down an offer of $3 billion in aid from the IMF, vowing to tackle the country's financial problems with foreign and regional aid. BM