Egypt received US$8.8 billion in external financing for the government and private sectors in 2023, a decrease of 35.7 percent fro 2022, according to Minister of International Cooperation Rania al-Mashat.
During a press conference on Sunday, she added that the current portfolio with development partners currently amounts to $26 billion, distributed over 200 projects, Asharq Business reported.
The volume of development financing provided to Egypt last year amounted to $13.7 billion, an increase of 37 percent over the previous year.
According to a report issued earlier in December, the Institute of International Finance placed the size of the financing gap that Egypt will face in the fiscal year 2023-2024 at about seven billion dollars, indicating that financing this gap will be mainly through foreign direct investment and official financial flows.
Mashat, who was speaking after the launch of the “Hafiz” platform to present opportunities for financial and technical support from development partners to the private sector, indicated that the latter received $10.3 billion in soft financing during the last three years, of which manufacturing industries received an important share.
For several months, Egypt has been seeking to revive an International Monetary Fund (IMF) program to finance it with three billion dollars, and even raise the funding to five billion dollars.
The program was frozen after the country obtained the first installment following the conclusion of the IMF agreement in December last year.
Egypt was supposed to receive on two tranches of the loan in March and September, which required a review each time by the fund regarding the extent of the Egyptian authorities’ compliance with the terms of the agreement.
The Director General of the IMF Kristalina Georgieva, said in an interview with Asharq Business last week: “I can confirm that Egypt will have full support from the Fund,” and in response to a question about whether this would happen in the first quarter of next year, she replied. “Yes, soon soon.”
A few days later, the Director of the Fund’s Communications Department Julie Kozak, stated that Egypt was holding discussions with the IMF to obtain additional funding.
