Egypt and the International Monetary Fund yesterday signed an agreement for a loan of $ 3 billion. According to Egyptian Finance Minister Samir Radwan funds will be used to restore the country’s economy. “Egypt has finalized negotiations with the IMF and signed an agreement to revive the Egyptian economy,” said Radwan a press conference in the Egyptian capital Cairo. In his words amounts of the loan will be disbursed within 12 months, the interest rate will be 1.5 percent. The Egyptian economy suffered severely in popular unrest in late January and early February this year. Only by the revolution on January 25, “now the country’s reserves in gold and foreign currency decreased by $ 8 billion to 28 billion dollars by the end of the year can almost melt. The budget deficit rose to 11% and $ 2 billion. Many industrial plants and not currently operating at full capacity due to ongoing strikes and unemployment exceeded 10%. Because of recent events FDI in the country dried up and the reduced flow of tourists has led to losses of 2.2 billion dollars for the budget. At present the capacity of the hotel is filled to no more than 20%, with most of the tourists are Egyptians.
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The African Development Bank (AfDB) announced that it has approved a loan of $ 500 million to support the Interim Government of Tunisia after the revolution from the beginning of this year, drops longtime president. The emergency loans will be disbursed in one tranche is part of financing totaling 1.4 billion dollars in support of Tunisia, which will grant the World Bank, the European Union and the French Development Agency, appointed by the African Development Bank (AfDB) said in a statement. It states that the funding aims to reduce regional inequalities in access to public services, strengthen job creation and to improve communication with the government of society.
Among the priorities are lowering youth unemployment, especially among recent graduates, and reducing disparities between the rich coastal regions and poorer regions within the country.