Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) Tarek Amer said on Sunday that the CBE is considering engaging the contracting sector in the CBE’s initiative to extend an EGP 100 billion facility to support the industry and agriculture sectors with a decreasing interest rate of 8 percent.

In statements to the Middle East News Agency (MENA), Amer noted that he seeks expanding access to the initiative to contain COVID-19’s impacts over the manufacturing, agriculture, and contracting sectors.

He added that the contracting sector is among the important sectors of the Egyptian economy that should be supported.

In December 2019, the CBE launched an initiative to support the industry sector with a decreasing interest rate of 10 percent.

Then, the CBE began to engage more sectors as beneficiaries and adjusted the interest rate to 8 percent in order to contain COVID-19’s impacts on the economic sectors in Egypt.

Total sums that are provided through the CBE’s initiatives so far exceed EGP 700 billion, including EGP 360 billion to back the SME sector, EGP 100 billion to support the industry and agriculture sectors, EGP 100 billion to support the real estate sector with EGP 50 billion for real-estate developers, and EGP 50 billion for supporting real-estate housing for low income class, in addition to number of initiative to support the tourism sector, lift stalled factory debts and postpone loan payment installments.