Egypt is holding talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over a non-financial structural reform program, which will be focusing on abolishing bureaucracy to lure more private investments, Bloomberg reports.
“Egypt wants to cut down on bureaucracy to improve the investment climate, and we are in talks with the [IMF] over a non-financial structural reform program,” the international news agency quoted the Central Bank of Egypt’s (CBE) Governor Tarek Amer as saying during an energy conference held in Cairo on February 11.
As Egypt ranks 114th place on the World Bank’s (WB) ease of doing business index, Amer clarified that the CBE had “opened all channels” for the flow of capital so investors “do not have borders like before.”
The institution has also given them a stable foreign-exchange market “that they can read” and in which “the risk premium is not too high like before,” he further noted.
Amer also added that the fiscal and the monetary reforms have been finalized, highlighting that they are currently talking about structural reforms. That move would mean trying to reduce bureaucracy, which the government wants to eliminate overtime, he elaborated.
Back in November 2016, Egypt embarked on deep reforms under a USD 12 bn loan program approved by the IMF.