RIYADH: Egypt has finalized a staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund on the components of its program, and will issue an announcement “very soon,” the country’s finance minister said on Sunday.
“Very productive bilateral discussions were held with IMF staff on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank’s annual meetings in Washington, and significant progress was made across all policies,” Mohamed Maait said in a statement.
Egypt began talks with the IMF for a financial support package in March, soon after the Ukrainian crisis threw its already unsettled finances into further disarray and led foreign investors to pull nearly $20 billion out of Egyptian treasury markets in a matter of weeks.
It is hoping to stem a currency crisis that has restricted imports and sparked market unease over foreign debt repayments.
In its own parallel statement on Saturday, the IMF said it had agreed with Egyptian authorities to finalize work to reach a staff-level agreement “very soon.”
The policies discussed, according to the IMF statement, included monetary and exchange rate policies that “would enable Egypt to gradually and sustainably rebuild foreign reserves,” public debt reduction, social safety net expansion, and increasing competitiveness in the economy.
“We are proceeding with raising the efficiency of public spending, ensuring optimal utilization of state resources, improving the budget structure, and enhancing financial transparency,” Maait said.
Like elsewhere around the world, Egyptian economy is also rattled by the Ukraine conflict. In an effort to mitigate the impact of the crisis, the North African country is planning to raise $6 billion by June 2023 through selling stakes in government companies.
Bloomberg recently cited Egypt’s Planning Minister Hala El-Said as saying that the move will include share offerings to the public or block sales to strategic investors, backed by the country’s sovereign wealth fund.
She did not reveal the names of the companies which will be listed for an initial public offering.
The Bloomberg report further revealed that the stakes of some companies owned by Egypt’s army will be sold as a part of this program. In September, Egypt set up a new fund to assist government companies in getting listed on the stock exchange.
The pre-IPO fund aims to restructure some state-owned assets and prepare them for stake sales. El-Said revealed that the ultimate target is to transfer assets worth $3 billion to the fund within three to six weeks, and it includes the assets of a power plant co-built by Siemens AG.
The planning minister said that Egypt will conduct road shows in Europe and Asia at the end of October to showcase the investment opportunities in the country.
She added that sovereign wealth funds within the Gulf and other regions will be approached to buy stakes in Egyptian entities.
