The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has not had any contact with the Egyptian interim government, said IMF spokesman William Murray in the latest press briefing issued by the international organisation on Thursday. "There are technical level contacts with Central Bank and Finance Ministry technicians, but there has been no contact with the current government in Egypt," he added Two weeks ago, the IMF announced that any decision to engage with a government would be dependent on its shareholders. When asked whether or not this remains the case, Murray said there is still no clarity from the shareholders on the situation in Egypt. "It's a case of the international community, not just the IMF, but the international community, its institutions, its nations coming together and recognising a particular government," Murray said. Murray added that this situation would be true anywhere and is not exclusive to Egypt. "Until our members make a decision on the Egyptian government, we are going to keep our contacts technical. It has to be at the technical level. It has to remain that way," he said. After a phone call with US Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew on Friday, Prime Minister Hazem El-Beblawi announced that the US will help the economy "by collaborating with international institutions led by the IMF and by abiding by the desires and requests of the Egyptian government." No official statement was released from the IMF, however. The most recent contact was between Mona Makram Ebeid, an Egyptian parliamentarian, and a number of IMF officials during a recent trip to Washington DC earlier this month. On Wednesday, Moody's, the credit rating agency which maintained Egypt's Caa1 rating classifying it as very high credit risk, said the implementation of an IMF-supported program of fiscal and economic reform would be considered as credit positive.
