Egypt expects to seal a final deal to receive a $12 billion International Monetary Fund loan package within two months, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said in a TV interview on Monday.
"I imagine that we will be signing the loan within the coming two months and before the end of the year," the prime minister said in the interview with Egyptian privately-owned channel CBC.
Ismail said the reform programme the government has adopted, which aims to boost growth and reduce the budget deficit, has been on the table since mid-2014 and was not pushed by the IMF as a requisite for approving the deal.
Egypt received preliminary approval for the three-year funding programme in August but the IMF’s executive board has yet to endorse it.
