Hafez Ghanem, vice president of the World Bank for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), said that Egypt will be receiving the third portion of the World Bank loan in December. He stressed in a statement made to the press delegation accompanying the American door-knocking delegation in Washington that the third portion will be worth nearly $1bn. Ghanem stressed that Egypt is considered the largest country in terms of cooperation with the bank, which reflects on the confidence of the World Bank in it. Iraq comes after Egypt in terms of financing volume from the World Bank. Ghanem said that he will be visiting Egypt next week to meet the Ministers of Finance, Investment, Agriculture, Housing, Electricity, and Education in order to look into cooperation methods in various projects in Egypt. Egypt's foreign debt is not risky, according to Ghanem, who added that the local debt is what represents a huge burden especially that the interest rate for local debt ranges between 15-20%. Ghanem called for the importance of getting rid of corporeal support and replacing it with monetary support, explaining that it is not right to work according to a support system that does not achieve justice or keep up with the technological development. He said that the bank is working to increase investments in Egypt to create jobs and expand the social insurance network to achieve social justice. He added that the bank has a specialised programme to increase investments in Upper Egypt by $500m; programmes to support housing, sewage, and water projects in the Delta region; and programmes to support hospitals and the Takaful and Karama programme.
