The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Friday said it had reached a staff-level agreement with Egypt for a one-year, 5.2 billion U.S. dollars standby loan to help the North African country grapple with the novel coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout.
The agreement comes after the Egyptian pound, which had held steady against the dollar for two months, slipped 2.2 percent against the dollar this week, its biggest weekly decline since March 2017.
The Fund said the agreement, which would be presented to the IMF Executive Board for final approval on the requested financing amount, was the result of virtual meetings with Egyptian authorities from May 19 to June 5.
In a statement also on Friday, the Egyptian finance ministry said the agreement proves the continued confidence of international institutions, especially the IMF, in Egypt's economic, monetary and financial policies as well as the country's handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
It will help preserve the gains Egypt has achieved in recent years by implementing the economic reform program, the ministry added.
On May 11, the IMF Executive Board approved Egypt's request for emergency financial assistance of 2.772 billion U.S. dollars over the COVID-19 outbreak.
Prior to the COVID-19 shock, Egypt carried out a successful economic reform supported by the IMF's Extended Fund Facility to correct large external and domestic imbalances.
Egypt announced its first confirmed COVID-19 case on February 14 and the first death from the highly infectious virus on March 8, both foreigners.
Until Friday night, Egypt's total coronavirus cases reached 31,115, including 1,166 deaths and 8,158 recoveries.
In mid-March, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi allocated 100 billion Egyptian pounds (6.35 billion U.S. dollars) to finance an anti-coronavirus plan.
Since March 25, the Egyptian government has been imposing a nighttime curfew, which varied between nine and 13 hours, to curb the spread of the virus.
The current nine-hour curfew will continue until mid-June, when the government will consider easing restrictions amid a coexistence plan to maintain anti-coronavirus precautionary measures while resuming economic activities.
(Cover image: Logo of International Monetary Fund. /Reuters)
(With input from Xinhua, Reuters)