Iran Says Ready To Lend Egypt Much-Needed Funds

Iran’s president says his country is ready to provide a “big credit line” to help revive the distressed economy of Egypt, which saw its foreign currency reserves — already at critically low levels — fall nearly 10 per cent last month.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose comments were published in the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper on Wednesday, is on a three-day visit to Egypt, centered around an Islamic summit.

It is the first trip by an Iranian leader in more than three decades. The two countries severed relations after the 1979 Islamic revolution, but after fall of Egypt’s close U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak and last summer’s election of an Islamist president, the two countries have grown closer.

Ahram