Posted on 08/22/2012 6:22:26 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
CAIRO (AP) — Egypt formally asked the International Monetary Fund for a $4.8 billion loan on Wednesday, seeking a desperately needed rescue package for its faltering economy but raising the possibility of painful restructuring in a country still reeling since its revolution more than 18 months ago.
The loan deal, which Egypt says it will reach by the end of the year, presents a major test to the Muslim Brotherhood-rooted president, Mohammed Morsi, the country's first ever freely elected leader, brought to power after the fall of Hosni Mubarak.
The IMF has avoided making specific conditions for a loan but it seeks a cohesive government plan for restarting economic growth and reducing a deficit that has grown to $23.6 billion, some 8.7 percent of gross domestic product.
A key part of that will likely be reducing subsidies that suck up a third of the government budget every year. Touching those subsidies, however, could bring social upheaval, since they keep commodities like fuel and bread cheap for a population of around 82 million, some 40 percent of whom live near or below the poverty line.
"The government will have to take urgent measures, at the top of them cutting energy subsidies," said Mohammed Abu Basha, a Cairo-based economist at investment bank EFG-Hermes Holding SAE. The biggest subsidies are those on fuel — including gasoline and cooking gas — costing the government some $16 billion a year.
Egypt's upheaval since the 18-day uprising that led to Mubarak's ouster on Feb. 11, 2011, has pushed its economy toward the brink. Amid near constant instability since, foreign investment has dried up. Revenues from tourism — one of the country's biggest money makers and employers — fell 30 percent to $9 billion in 2011 and the industry is only making a meager recovery.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Tourism is down, Gee, I wonder why?
I’m not feeling well either. I’ll settle for $4,000.
Egypt was doing pretty good until Slick Willie’s wife took her fat ass over there and got her goofy Arab Spring thing fired up. Now it’s really a ****hole!
yeah, the muslim brotherhood needs to buy arms....see to it Hillary, like the millions you got Hazbullah.
More money for crucifixes, slaves, rockets to kill children,
and MANPADs to shoot down civilian airplanes.
What could possibly go wrong?
I would like to visit but not with the islamonuts in charge.
Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood?
F-them and feed ‘em fish heads.
Should we send the check directly to Geneva ?
They can eat their korans if they get too hungry. If it gets real bad then they can eat pigs and dog or the limbs of the people they cut and blow up.
They wanted 7th century living, well they got it now.
I am planning to go to Egypt in October.
I am planning to go to Egypt in October.
I am planning to go to Egypt in October.
+1
Maybe Saudi should take care of their own?
OK, I’ll bite.
WHY?
Hard to believe.
WHY?
He seems to want to talk about it real bad.
Does the IMF actually have an extra $5 Billion kicking around? In reality it will have to scrounge this up from the US (principally), the UK, Germany, France et. al. and ALL these governments are, technically, broke. Any IMF funding will simply encourage Egypt to continue its military excursion in the Sinai. Those tanks don't run on sand.
Where are the rich arab states? Let them pony up for their infidel hating moslem brethren. The west has poured enough money into this rat hole.
I wonder what the annual take was from the tourist business Pre-Muslim Brotherhood. Surely in the hundreds of millions, perhaps in the billions. Pretty hard to replace that income stream so it’s time to live for awhile on “Other People’s Money”. While it lasts.
Too late now to see the pyramids.
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