AfDB approves $500 million loan payment to Egypt

Tuesday 13-12-2016 05:24 PM

A customer counts his U.S. dollar money in a bank in Cairo, Egypt March 10, 2016. E REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh/

By Reuters

CAIRO, Dec 13 (Reuters) - The African Development Bank's (AfDB) board approved on Tuesday payment of a $500 million loan to Egypt, the second of three expected disbursals, Minister of International Cooperation Sahar Nasr told Reuters.

Egypt has been negotiating billions of dollars in aid from various lenders to help revive its economy, battered by political and economic upheaval since a 2011 uprising.

AfDB approved the loan in light of reforms announced over the past year. They included a plan to move 20 percent of the country's energy mix to renewable sources by 2025 and industrial zones established by the ministry of trade and industry, Nasr said.

The loan will go toward development work that includes social housing, youth employment and sanitation projects and is subject to parliamentary approval, said Nasr, who declined to specify when a vote might take place.

The minister said that a second $1 billion tranche from a $3 billion, three-year loan for budget support from the World Bank, also subject to parliamentary approval, would be voted on by that lender's board on December 20. (Reporting by Eric Knecht; editing by Larry King)

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