Egypt managed to get the additional funding requested by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to grant Egypt a loan of $12bn, according to Deputy Minister of Finance Ahmed Kojak. The IMF had announced in July that its officials agreed to grant Egypt $4bn annually for three years, if the country manages to obtain additional funding of $5-6bn from other sources. Kojak said, on the sidelines of the Euromoney conference held on Monday, that the required funding had been secured. "This issue has been resolved," he said, adding that several positive steps of the economic reform programme had been accomplished. Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, said earlier this month that she will hold talks with high-level officials in some countries to encourage them to provide Egypt with a $5-6bn of financing. She added that this would include Middle Eastern and Gulf countries, which have historically been supportive of Egypt, but may also include other countries ready to participate in helping Egypt and to take advantage of its great economic potential. Egypt aims to issue dollar-denominated bonds worth $3bn in the international market, and Kojak expects their interest rate to range from 6-6.5%. The bonds are expected to be issued by the end of October, "if we see that this is the right time to do so". The Ministry of Finance announced in an official statement in September 2015 that it had selected four global investment banks to manage the process of offering the dollar-denominated bonds, including Natixis, Citibank, JP Morgan, and BNP Paribas.
