IMF’s Kristalina Georgieva applauds Egypt’s progress on economic reforms

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Thursday that Egypt has made good progress on economic reforms.

“Egypt has made good progress on a number of fronts, fiscal policy, the implementation of privatisation strategy, the engagement with our team on how to best conduct monetary policy in these very challenging times.” Georgieva told reporters at the lender’s annual meetings in Morocco.

“We are currently in close engagement to define the dates for mission so we can make that progress I am talking about.” she said. “My respect to the Egyptian authorities, the Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank, they are handling very difficult challenges, and they are doing that well.”

She further said the IMF is in “close engagement” with Egypt to set the dates to discuss a much-delayed review of a $3 billion loan programme. “Our discussions are very much focused on making sure that Egypt succeeds,”

The IMF has yet to complete two loan programme reviews, which were supposedly to take place last March and September.

In December last year, IMF’s executive board approved a 46-month arrangement of around $3 billion under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) to Egypt.