World Bank gives Egypt 1 bln USD in support of economic reform plan

The World Bank (WB) on Friday transferred one billion U.S. dollars to Egypt to boost the Arab country's economic reform program, official news agency MENA reported.

"This is the first batch of a three billion U.S. dollar deal allocated for funding a government economic development plan," Egyptian Minister of International Cooperation Sahar Nassr was quoted by MENA as saying.

The WB fund will support the government efforts to mobilize financial resources for implementing its economic program and the national projects that will help provide job opportunities, improve the citizens' living standards and strengthen the state infrastructure, Nassr said.

She added that the WB fund will be directed to the projects with high employment rates, and will help achieve sustainable economic development.

The Egyptian economy has been battling recession over the past five years due to political turmoil that led to the ouster of two presidents, shrinking the foreign currency reserves at the central bank from 36 billion U.S. dollars in early 2011 to 15.5 billion dollars as of end of July 2016.

The country's main sources of foreign currency -- tourism, the Suez Canal and the remittances of Egyptian expatriates -- declined over the past few years for various reasons.

The country has been struggling to carry out economic reforms and establish national projects to revive its ailing economy which included deals with the world's major financial organizations.

Egypt has recently reached an initial agreement with the International Monetary Fund to get a 12 billion U.S. dollar loan to reduce its budget deficit and carry out a three-year tough economic reform program that will include subsidy cuts and extra tax. Endit