Egypt this week raised $5bn through the sale of bonds in three tranches with maturities of four, 12 and 30 years. This comes hot on the heels of $2.77bn it received last week from the IMF as part of the fund’s Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI) to help stem the impact of the coronavirus pandemic (MEES, 15 May).
IMF communications chief Gerry Rice revealed on 21 May that the RFI is on heavily-concessionary terms with annual interest of just 1% and a “significant grace period” with repayments over up to five years. Presumably such terms also apply to other recipients of IMF Covid-linked RFI cash such as Jordan (MEES, 22 May) and Tunisia (MEES, 17 April). (CONTINUED - 258 WORDS)