AfDB approves $1.5 bn loan to Egypt

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved a $1.5 billion loan to Egypt to be paid out over three years, International Cooperation Minister Sahar Nasr told Reuters on Tuesday.

The first $500 million of the loan will arrive within days, said Nasr, and will go toward the government's economic development programme and national projects.

"We have a competitive economic reform programme that started more than a year back and based on that we are taking the first tranche,” Nasr, a former World Bank official, told Reuters by telephone.

Egypt expects to receive an additional $1 billion from the World Bank by the end of the year to support the budget and could discuss potential IMF financing once parliament convenes, Nasr told Reuters previously.