IMF completes Egypt reviews, unlocks $1.8 billion for nation resilient to war effects

The International Monetary Fund said on Thursday it completed two reviews of some facilities for Egypt, giving ‌the country access to about $1.8 billion. 

Egypt would receive about $1.5 ​billion under ⁠the IMF's 48-month loan programme after completing the ‌seventh review, along with roughly $272 ‌million under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility, bringing total disbursements under Egypt's current arrangement with the fund to about $7.3 billion. 

Egypt agreed ‌to a $3 billion loan with the IMF in December 2022. The ⁠programme was expanded to $8 billion in March 2024, when the country was grappling with high inflation and foreign currency shortages. 

The global lender said Egypt's economy has remained resilient to spillovers from the war in the Middle East. The country had entered the ​regional conflict from a stronger macroeconomic position than in previous ‌external shocks, helped by a more flexible exchange rate, fuel-price adjustments and curbs on state spending, it added. 

Economic growth reached 5% ⁠in the third quarter of the 2025/26 fiscal year, while growth for the full year is projected at about 4.6%, the IMF said. 

However, ​important ‌vulnerabilities remain, the fund warned, including public debt, large gross ‌financing needs, and a sizable state footprint. 

"A renewed escalation of regional tensions could weigh on growth, raise global inflationary pressures, tighten financial conditions, and ‌put additional pressure ‌on the fiscal and external ⁠positions," the IMF said in a statement. Efforts to ‌reduce the state’s role in the economy and create greater space for private sector investment, including through divestment ⁠of state assets, have progressed more slowly than anticipated ​and need to be accelerated," the lender added. 

New threat to shipping 

A drone strike that sparked fires on two gas vessels in Egypt's ​Mediterranean port of ⁠Damietta has raised a new threat to shipping through the Suez Canal, one of the last major export routes ‌available to Saudi oil amid the expanding US-Iran ‌war. No one has claimed responsibility for what Egypt's cabinet said on Thursday was an unidentified drone that caused a fire on two vessels at Damietta a day earlier. The port lies near the Suez Canal, which links the Mediterranean and Red Seas. 

The drone hit the US-owned gas storage tanker Energos Winter, causing ‌a fire that spread to a second vessel, people familiar with the incident said. 

Iran has denied any involvement in the Damietta strike. 

"Egypt is an ⁠important friend and partner in the region, and its security is of utmost importance to us," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on social media. "We must all be vigilant against Israeli plots and false-flag operations designed to undermine regional peace." 

The five-month-old war has already brought shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a slender chokepoint in the global energy trade, to a virtual standstill. 

Before the conflict, the waterway between Oman and Iran carried about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies. The strait has become the main hurdle in peace talks and a flashpoint for repeated escalations ​in the conflict. 

Reuters