Speaking to the press on Sunday, El Garhy said he expects the second installment of the IMF’s loan to Egypt to be disbursed in June, according to Reuters. This comes in line with IMF executive director Hazem El Beblawi’s expectation of the USD 1.125 bn tranche being disbursed within six weeks. El Garhy also “told a news conference that the IMF’s review of Egypt’s economic reforms was going well.”

…Separately, Egypt is considering issuing a new Eurobond at the end of May or early June, El Garhy also said, according to Reuters. El Garhy had said in April Egypt was considering a USD 1.5-2 bn Eurobond issuance after finding strong investor appetite for its USD 4 bn issue in January.

El Garhy also said the government will outline within the next two weeks steps it will take to ease pressure on consumers caused by the economic reforms, Al Masry Al Youm reports.

El Garhy said that state authorities have been hard at work pursuing further reform, managing to achieve target tax income of c. EGP 291 bn during the first 10 months of FY2016-17. Tax income from this season’s collections reached EGP 21 bn, he added, with revenues from real estate taxes loan having more than doubled to EGP 1.9 bn from EGP 900 mn last year (watch, runtime 2:01).