World Bank, IFC delegation to visit Egypt next week: minister

A senior delegation of the World Bank Group and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) will visit Egypt next week, Egypt’s Minister of Investment and International Cooperation Sahar Nasr said Wednesday.

The delegation seeks to hear more about reform policies undertaken by the government to revive the Egyptian economy, Nasr added.

It will discuss the annual Doing Business report, the Egyptian minister said, stating that the ministry plans to take some measures of noticeable, rapid impact to investors, in order to attract more foreign direct investments (FDI).

Egypt rose four places in the Doing Business index for 2017, released in October 2016, compared to the last year’s report, placing 122nd out of 190 countries and taking fifth place among comparative economies in the MENA region in terms of the ease of doing business.

It was preceded by the UAE, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Last year, the report said that Egypt’s overall rank was 131st out of 189 countries. However, earlier this year the rank was revised to 126th.

Egypt signed a second $1 billion tranche loan agreement with the director of the World Bank in Cairo in late December part of a $3 billion loan package to support Egypt’s economic reform programme.

Egypt received the first tranche of the loan in September.

The current portfolio of the World Bank in Egypt includes 25 projects with a total commitment of about $8.5 billion.

Following the flotation of the local currency in November, the IMF approved the loan and the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) received an initial $2.75 billion tranche.