Egypt pays off $2 bln of debt in December

Egypt’s central bank repaid about $2 billion in debt to international bodies in December, state-run MENA news agency reported Friday.

“Of the total, 1.2 billion U.S. dollars were paid back to the African Export-Import Bank and about 920 million to other international bodies,” Rami Abul-Naga, a deputy to the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) governor, told MENA.

In early January next year, the CBE will pay back 700 million dollars out of the total debt of 3.2 billion dollars to the Paris Club, he said.

The Paris Club is a group of officials from major creditor countries whose role is to find solutions to the payment difficulties of debtor countries.

On Wednesday, the CBE received the first 2.03-billion-dollar disbursal of the second tranche of a 12-billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), bringing the total amount Egypt has received to 6.08 billion dollars.

In November 2016, Egypt accepted the three-year IMF loan program tied to its ambitious economic reforms such as subsidy cuts, tax hikes, value-added taxes, as well as the devaluation of its local currency.

Source: Xinhua