By Farah Halime, Rebel Economy Egypt's deputy finance minister, Hany Kadry Dimian, has left his post after six years in the ministry, a source at the finance ministry told Rebel Economy, delivering a blow to the country's chances of concluding a loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund. Mr Dimian, who has served as the deputy since 2007 and survived all of Egypt's five finance ministers in the two years since the revolution, will leave “at the end of this week", according to the source who did not name his successor. While the nature of Mr Dimian's departure is unclear, the timing sends a bad signal to international policy makers and Egyptian officials who say they are on the cusp of signing an IMF loan worth $4.8 billion. Mr Dimian has proved to be an important component of Egypt's finance ministry, surviving all five finance ministers since the beginning of the revolution in 2011. As well as creating a Macro-Fiscal policy unit at the ministry of finance in 2005 (which has been a leading the writing of Egypt's economic plan), Mr Dimian also represents the Egyptian side for the Egypt-EU economic dialogues and is coordinator for the EU-Egypt Neighborhood Policy Action. He also serves as a board member of the Egyptian Competition Authority and the country's National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority. A second source, who was aware of the deputy minister's departure, said a number of people have been nominated for the position including Maged Shawky, former head of the Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchange, Amr El Kadi, head of risk management at private equity firm Citadel Capital, and Nidal Asr, assistant Sub-Governer at Egypt's Central Bank.
Farah is a business journalist and founder of Rebel Economy, a blog focused on how regional economies are rebuilding after the Arab Spring. This post originally appeared on Rebel Economy
