Egypt's Article IV consultations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will take place in November, IMF Director for the Middle East and Central Asia Masood Ahmed said.
Egypt hopes that the IMF report will favor Egypt and contribute to the return of foreign reserve flows, either directly as investments in the real economy or indirectly by improving the stock market, Finance Minister Hany Qadry Dimian said on Sunday.
Egypt will be holding a major investment conference next year and is counting on a positive IMF assessment to win the trust of foreign investors. "The Egyptian authorities have now requested an Article IV mission from the IMF which we anticipate will take place in the month of November and this timing is quite fortuitous because it would then allow us, if all goes well, to report based on the work of this team, which could be discussed by our executive Board and be ready in time for the Egyptian economic conference summit that they are planning next year," Ahmed said on Friday.
"And it will be a good — we hope it will be a good contribution to the analysis of the economic situation of the reforms that are being undertaken, of the challenges that lie ahead and of the way in which not just Egypt but its partners can help it in the years to come," Ahmed added.
He pointed out that they have been actively supporting Egypt through technical work, particularly in the area of tax reform, and more recently discussing the reform of the value-added tax.
Egypt has not held Article IV consultations, where IMF experts assess a country's financial and economic state of affairs, since March 2010.
The Article IV mission had been postponed because of the difficult transitions that Egypt has faced over the last few years.
An Article IV report is like a consultation that acts as a health check of an economy, which IMF does for all of his members.
