“Egypt is on the right path,” Jihad Azour, director of the Middle East, Central Asia, and Pakistan Department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), told Al-Ahram Weekly in an interview on the sidelines of the the IMF/World Bank Group annual meetings held in Washington DC last week.
“Sustained reform implementation and continued macroeconomic discipline will strengthen resilience, attract investment, and position Egypt as a leading player in the region’s post-conflict economic revival,” he said.
An Egyptian delegation participated in the annual meetings and held intensive discussions with IMF officials with a view to the completion of the fifth and sixth reviews of the $8 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) made available to Egypt by the IMF, as well as the completion of the first review of the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) $1.3 billion loan deal.
The EFF and RSF loan deals are scheduled to conclude in November 2026.
Azour said that the Egyptian government’s priority must be protecting vulnerable households and maintaining price stability. “The most important issue is how to protect low-income people,” he said, adding that it was important to keep inflation under control.
“The most unfair tax for citizens is high inflation,” he said, noting that Egypt has made notable progress in this area, with inflation having dropped from 33 per cent last year to 20 per cent this year and expected to reach around 11 per cent by September 2026.
“This is a major achievement that will restore purchasing power and improve living standards,” Azour said.
Meanwhile, accelerating job creation through stronger private-sector participation in the economy remains key, he added.
“The best way to mitigate higher costs is to create more job opportunities,” Azour said. Egypt’s growth improved from 2.4 per cent in 2024 to 4.3 per cent in 2025, and the IMF expects it to remain at 4.5 per cent in 2026. “Structural reforms, faster privatisation, and expanding competition will help sustain this growth and create opportunities for Egyptians,” he added.
Nonetheless, challenges persist. Azour acknowledged that Egypt’s debt-servicing remains a challenge as it accounts for about 50 per cent of total government expenditures, equivalent to 10 per cent of GDP.
“Reducing the debt burden is one of the key objectives of the IMF-supported programme,” he said. Accelerating public-sector reform, improving the business environment, and attracting more foreign direct investment (FDI) will all help ease financing needs, strengthen Egypt’s capacity to generate foreign currency, and reduce the crowding-out of the private sector, he added.
He commended Egypt’s recently launched economic narrative through 2030, describing it as aligned with the pillars of the IMF programme. The first pillar focuses on stabilisation, reducing fiscal imbalances, lowering inflation, and using the exchange-rate regime to protect the economy from external shocks, he noted.
The second pillar is to give more space to the private sector to lead growth. “This means improving the business environment, simplifying procedures such as customs and land registration, and allowing the state to focus on enabling rather than competing with the private sector,” Azour said.
He stressed that providing access to finance and promoting financial inclusion, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), is essential to empower Egyptians to create their own opportunities. “Egypt is moving in the right direction, and the success of this model will depend on maintaining reform momentum and investor confidence,” he said.
Azour praised Egypt’s resilience in managing the economic fallout from two years of conflict in Gaza and security disruptions in the Red Sea, noting that the country had successfully contained spillover effects and maintained the resilience of its key economic sectors.
“The conflict in Gaza that lasted for the last two years has had an impact on neighbouring countries, but Egypt had succeeded in limiting the negative spillover,” he said. Tourism was resilient and able to recover, and while trade was affected due to security issues in the Red Sea, Azour said it is expected to improve following the restoration of stability, thus helping Suez Canal revenues gradually to recover.
The Gaza peace deal signed in Sharm El-Sheikh also aims to end the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Regionally, Azour said that the Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan, and the Caucasus region continues to show economic resilience despite global tensions and uncertainties. Citing numbers from the IMF’s Regional Economic Outlook, he said that regional growth is projected to reach 3.2 per cent in 2025, compared with 2.1 per cent last year, and to further rise to 3.7 per cent in 2026, an upward revision of 0.3 percentage points compared to the IMF’s April projections.
He attributed the improved outlook to strong non-oil sector performance, driven by diversification and robust public investment, alongside a solid rebound in tourism, remittances, and agriculture. For oil importers in the region, lower commodity prices and a rebound in key sectors such as tourism and agriculture supported stronger growth.
However, Azour warned of lingering risks, citing “high global uncertainty, potential volatility in financial markets that could raise borrowing costs, and possible renewed tension in commodity markets.”
* A version of this article appears in print in the 23 October, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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