Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said on April 26 that Egypt is in talks with International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a financial assistance deal as well as technical support to cushion the pandemic’s negative implications, Invest-Gate reports.

The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) Governor Tarek Amer affirmed in a joint press conference that the program will last for one year only, without revealing the possible amount of fund. He noted that Egypt is ready to absorb the repercussions of the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis for one or two years thanks to its relatively-huge international reserves.

On his part, Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said that Egypt’s negotiations with the IMF aim to support the latest economic achievements and to help the country withstand the pandemic’s impact.

He added that the current crisis the world is facing, and especially Egypt, is due to the lockdown, referring to the declining revenues of some sectors such as travel and tourism, one of the main sources of the North African country’s national income.

In February, the country said it was in talks with the IMF over a non-financial structural reform program, which will be focusing on abolishing bureaucracy to lure more private investments.

“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  Amer as saying back then.