Egypt's president, British FM agree on loan deal

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi met with visiting British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson on Saturday in Cairo where they agreed on a British loan of 150 million U.S. dollars to assist Egypt's economic reform program, official MENA news agency reported.

The Egyptian president and the British foreign secretary finalized the loan guarantee agreement that is related to assist Egypt with its strict three-year economic reform plan encouraged and financed by a 12-billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Facing an economic crisis over the past few years of political turmoil and relevant security challenges, Egypt resorted to the IMF loan to face a growing budget deficit and a rising inflation rate and to finance its reform plan that includes austerity measures, energy subsidy cuts and local currency floatation.

During his meeting with Johnson, President Sisi expressed appreciation of British support for Egypt to get the IMF 12-billion-dollar loan, whose first batch of 2.75 billion dollars was handed to the most populous Arab country in November 2016.

The British 150-million-dollar loan will include 18 millions to develop the Egyptian government's technical expertise to guarantee social protection network for the poor amid the austerity measures.

source: Xinhua