Egypt to get first tranche of $1.5bn Saudi loan ‘soon’

Emirates Business

Egypt will “soon” receive the first tranche of a $1.5 billion loan from Saudi Arabia, an Egyptian minister said, a cash injection that could help to ease a dollar shortage that has weighed on economic growth.
The first payment will be about $500 million, Egypt’s Minister of International Cooperation Sahar Nasr said.
The loan is one of a package of agreements worth $25 billion signed during Saudi King Salman’s visit to Cairo in April, which include a $16 billion investment fund and a plan to build a bridge connecting the two nations. A Saudi delegation will visit Egypt next week, Nasr said.
The deal represents a shift in Saudi Arabia’s strategy to support Egypt through investment rather than aid as it struggles to shake the economic and political turmoil that followed President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in 2011.
Though stable at around $16
billion-$17 billion since September, Egypt’s foreign currency reserves
remain less than half the level
they were before the uprising, in
spite of billions of dollars in aid
from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE. and Qatar.