The World Bank approved increasing the volume of financing to Egypt within the four coming years up to US$5 billion, through US$1.2 billion annually to overcome its current sagging economy, according to Hafez Ghanem, deputy chief of the bank for the Middle East and North Africa region.
He added that the move indicates that Egypt is now on the right path.
Ghanem said that the WB has granted Egypt around US$900 million over the past two months, including US$500 million to the project of one million housing units carried out by the Housing Ministry. The rest of the US$400 million was allocated to another project carried out by the Social Solidarity Ministry.
The bank, according to Ghanem, works on reducing measures of granting the loans in order to provide them in short time to fulfill needs of the borrowing countries. Such loans are laden with benefits like long periods for repaying the loan reaching 25 years with five-year grace period and an interest rate ranging between 1.5-2 percent.
The bank chief Jim Yong Kim will arrive in Cairo on June 9 with a delegation from the bank in an official visit that will last for few days, according to Ghanem.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
