The latest on our pending IMF review: The IMF Executive Board has added the third review of our USD 8 bn loan program — set for 29 July — back to its calendar, after briefly removing it from its schedule yesterday.

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All according to schedule: “Consultations with the Fund are currently ongoing and the disbursement of the third tranche of our loan will be discussed as scheduled on 29 July,” a senior government source told Enterprise. The source added that the Fund and the new Madbouly government are in talks over the government’s work over the coming period.

Remember: The IMF Executive Board was initially scheduled to discuss the third review on 10 July, before the Fund pushed the meeting to 29 July to “finalize some details,” according to IMF Communications Director Julie Kozack, who assured in a press briefing earlier this month that these postponements are “not unusual in these kinds of circumstances.” The greenlight from the board will see the Fund disburse a fresh USD 820 tranche into the state coffers and will allow Egypt to apply for an additional USD 1.2 bn in climate finance. Egypt and the IMF reached a staff-level agreement on the third review early last month.

There’s still time for Egypt to meet the IMF’s conditions: The IMF Executive Board’s agenda is not final and can be amended up to a day before the meeting, economist Medhat Nafie told Enterprise, adding that this could give the Egyptian government up until 3 days before the meeting to implement agreed-upon conditions, which are “likely include fuel price hikes.”

Flexibility is needed on both sides: Nafie pointed out that the IMF has not objected to the Central Bank’s partial intervention in the exchange rate regime by pumping USD into the banking sector. “The question now is whether the Fund will intensify its stance on Egypt implementing agreed-upon measures for each review to disburse new tranches,” Nafie said. He also emphasized that given the comprehensive nature of the program some government responses to certain conditions might not serve the main goal of taming inflation, requiring greater flexibility from the Fund.

ICYMI: Talks with the new Madbouly cabinet over its policy and goals have been ongoing since last week and were expected to wrap up sometime this week, sources previously told Enterprise. The talks revolved around monetary and fiscal policies, as well as policies related to public spending, with trimming fuel subsidies a key point in discussions.

The new price tag on fuel is right around the corner: Another government source told Enterprise last week that the government's fuel pricing committee had concluded its meetings to review fuel prices for the next three months and is expected to announce its decision “very soon.”

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