Egypt’s central bank receives second disbursal $1.25 bln of IMF loan

Egypt’s central bank (CBE) has received Tuesday the second and final disbursal of the first $4 billion tranche of a $12 billion loan from the IMF, an official source in the CBE told state-run news agency MENA

The second installment of the International Monetary Fund’s first tranche loan to Egypt amounts to $1.25 billion.

The deposit follows the IMF executive board’s approval of the first review of the loan, said MENA.

“This batch will support the central bank’s cash reserve of foreign currency, which reached $31.3 billion at the end of June, the highest rate since the January 2011 revolution,” the source added in a statement to MENA.

Egypt received the first part of the IMF loan, worth $2.75 billion, in November 2016 before receiving the second part on Tuesday.

The total loan that Egypt is due to receive from the IMF is $12 billion over three years, at $4 billion each year, according to the agreement between the Egyptian government and the fund reached earlier in August 2016.

Egypt expects to receive a third loan installment worth $2 billion from the IMF between December and January, following a review between November and December, Finance Minister Amr el-Garhy told Reuters earlier on Monday.