Egypt to sign World Bank $500mn loan for Upper Egypt development tomorrow

World Bank will sign Thursday a financing agreement worth $500 million with Egypt to support the Upper Egypt Local Development Programme, said World Bank vice president Hafez Ghanem announced on Wednesday.

The agreement will be signed on the sidelines of the World Bank Annual Meetings scheduled to be held in Washington, will focus on Qena and Sohag governorates and on delivering services to lagging regions, providing youth and women with job opportunities and improving infrastructure.

Qena and Sohag are two of the poorest governorates in Egypt.

The programme aims to enhance competiveness of economic sectors with unrealised potentials, support industrial zone management, apply a performance-based grant system and increase the budget of both governorates.

This programme comes within the framework of the bank’s Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for 2015–2019, which provides about $8 billion for supporting Egypt’s economy.