{"id":30266,"date":"2016-11-12T23:20:12","date_gmt":"2016-11-12T23:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/egypt-wins-approval-for-12bn-loan-from-the-imf\/"},"modified":"2016-11-12T23:20:02","modified_gmt":"2016-11-12T23:20:02","slug":"egypt-wins-approval-for-12bn-loan-from-the-imf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/egypt-wins-approval-for-12bn-loan-from-the-imf\/","title":{"rendered":"Egypt wins approval for $12bn loan from the IMF"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved a three-year $12bn (\u20ac11bn) loan for Egypt to help the country out of its deep economic crisis.}<\/p>\n<p>Egypt will receive $2.75bn immediately, with the rest subject to its economic performance and further reforms.<\/p>\n<p>IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the bailout would &#8220;address longstanding challenges&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Egypt&#8217;s President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi is facing high unemployment and a budget deficit of 12% of GDP.<\/p>\n<p>The country has struggled to attract foreign investment since the political turmoil in 2011 and the so-called Arab Spring, which saw former president Hosni Mubarak overthrown.<\/p>\n<p>Tourism &#8211; traditionally a leading source of income for Egypt &#8211; has declined sharply over the past five years.<\/p>\n<p>Last week Egypt floated its currency in a move that reduced its value by almost 50% against the dollar in an attempt to strengthen confidence in the economy.<\/p>\n<p>The government also increased interest rates by three percentage points to 14.75%, and raised the price of basic commodities and fuel.<\/p>\n<p>The moves led to widespread criticism of the president and a drop in his popularity. A big security operation was put in place in Cairo to pre-empt mass demonstrations that had been expected on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Lagarde said the latest &#8220;home-grown economic plan&#8221; was intended to tackle the country&#8217;s large budget deficit, low growth and high unemployment rate.<\/p>\n<p>She said that further reforms, such as reductions in fuel subsidies and legislation to reduce Egypt&#8217;s public sector wage bill, were necessary for the country to move forward.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Resolute implementation of the policy package is essential to restore investor confidence,&#8221; Ms Lagarde said.<\/p>\n<p>In 2013, Egypt&#8217;s first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, was ousted by the military, led by Gen Sisi, after only one year in power.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Sisi was later elected president in May 2014.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-16375 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_92410423_egypt.jpg\" alt=\"Last week Egypt floated its currency in a move aimed at strengthening confidence in the economy\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved a three-year $12bn (\u20ac11bn) loan for Egypt to help the country out of its deep economic crisis.} Egypt will receive $2.75bn immediately, with the rest subject to its economic performance and further reforms. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the bailout would &#8220;address longstanding challenges&#8221;. Egypt&#8217;s President Abdul [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-30266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30266"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=30266"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=30266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}