Egypt Nears Agreement With IMF
CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt has finalized a staff-level agreement with the international monetary fund (IMF) on the components of its program, and will issue an announcement “very soon,” the country’s finance minister said on Sunday. “Very productive bilateral discussions were held with IMF staff on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank’s annual meetings in Washington, and significant progress was made across all policies,” Mohamed Maait said in a statement. Egypt began talks with the IMF for a financial support package in March, soon after the Ukrainian conflict threw its already unsettled finances into further disarray and led foreign investors to pull nearly $20 billion out of Egyptian treasury markets in a matter of weeks.