CAIRO: Egypt is to ink a $3.2 billion loan agreement deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in early June, semi-official al-Ahram newspaper reported. The report cited the country's Finance Minister Momtaz el-Sayed as saying the first part of the loan could be released around July 1, the beginning of the fiscal year 2012-2013. He said the central bank's governor is currently in Washington discussing technical details related to the signing and transfer of the funds with IMF officials. The IMF had urged Egypt for more strict procedures, in order to secure a $3.2 billion loan to support its budget, which has a gap of 12$ billion, according to an official IMF statement. Masood Ahmed, IMF director for the Middle East and North Africa, told Reuters that Egypt still needed to do “some technical work” to finalize its economic program. Masood has claimed there are three important steps that Egypt should take if it wants to go further in the loan procedure with the IMF, referring to the economic program, political support and alternative financial sources. “I think that process (of getting political support) is advancing but I do not think we are at the point yet where we could move forward.” “There's still more work to be done to close down those three areas,” he said, referring the three important steps to secure the loan.
