Egypt starts negotiations with world, African banks to get new loan tranches

Egypt started negotiations with the World Bank and the African Bank for Development to get new batches from the agreed-upon loans by the end of the year, the country's International Cooperation Minister Sahar Nasr said Monday.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Euromoney conference, she said the ministry is now trying to get one billion dollars from the WB and 500 million dollars from the African bank.

Nasr said Egypt signed a three-billion-dollar loan agreement that later rose to eight billion dollars. The loan will be paid to Egypt over three years.

Two weeks ago, Egypt got the first one-billion-dollar batch of the WB loan.

About the African Bank, Nasr said Egypt signed an agreement with the African bank to get a 1.5-billion-dollar loan to be paid over three batches. Egypt received the first 500-million-dollar batch of the loan in December.

The loans are channeled to small and medium-scale, infrastructure and national projects.