The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reached a staff-level agreement with Egypt on the fifth and sixth reviews under the global monetary body’s “Extended Fund Facility Arrangement,” potentially unlocking a roughly USD 2.5 billion disbursement for the North African country under the programme.
The fund combined the fifth and sixth reviews of Egypt’s support programme to give authorities more time to meet critical objectives embedded in it. IMF, meanwhile, reached a similar milestone on the first review of another ongoing fund programme, the “Resilience and Sustainability Facility,” which could potentially give Egypt access to an additional USD 1.3 billion. The staff-level agreements, however, must still be approved by the IMF’s executive board.
Egypt agreed to the expanded USD 8 billion, 46-month loan in March 2024, at a time when it was grappling with high inflation and shortages of foreign currency. The North African country, in 2025, managed to tame the inflation demon to some extent, after touching the peak of 38% in September 2023. Annual urban consumer inflation stood at 12.3% in November 2025.
The country’s foreign currency shortage has also eased, helped by the IMF loan programme, record tourism revenues, remittances from Egyptians working abroad and investment deals with Gulf countries, including the United Arab Emirates, worth tens of billions of dollars.
“Stabilisation efforts have delivered important gains and the Egyptian economy is showing signs of robust growth,” IMF Mission Chief for Egypt Vladkova Hollar said in a statement.
The IMF, however, said structural reforms still need to be accelerated, including the divestment of state assets, a centrepiece of the loan deal where the global monetary body believes progress has been slow.
In August 2025, Egypt ratified legislative amendments aimed at accelerating the sale of state-owned assets.
“Going forward, efforts to reduce the role of the state need to be accelerated. This includes significant further progress with the divestment agenda, and additional efforts to level the playing field,” Hollar concluded.