Cabinet’s message for the week: We know we need to raise more USD as a condition of the IMF facility, and we’re on it now. Prime Minister Sherif Ismail set the tone yesterday, noting that Egypt’s allies, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, will help plug our financing gap over the next three years. International financial institutions will also help finance the government’s three-year program with the IMF, he added, according to Bloomberg. The piece also confirms that the IMF’s executive board will not consider the USD 12 bn facility before Egypt secures as much as USD 6 bn in funding separately, as previously noted by IMF mission chief in Egypt Chris Jarvis. Ismail told Bloomberg in addition to the IMF, funds will come from the World Bank, the bond market, and bilateral agreements.

(Somewhere in an alternate, Bloombergian universe (or: Wow, did your scriptwriter mess up): The Bloomberg story quoting the PM gets things right, but there’s an auto-play video embedded in the story that can’t say the same thing. The news anchor says she’s providing “context and background” on the story, but completely messed up the timeline: “Here’s the situation: Unrest resurfaced in 2016, fuelled by anger at police violence and President El Sisi’s move to cede two islands to Saudi Arabia. Officials responded severely to protests, and thousands of Egyptians died in political violence.”)

Finance Minister Amr El Garhy and International Cooperation Minister Sahar Nasr took it from there, saying at a joint press conference yesterday that the International Cooperation Ministry has received pledges of USD 22.5 bn. Of that figure, USD 11.5 bn has been locked-in, including USD 3.8 bn in the form of grants. The message from the presser is perfectly clear: We have nothing to worry about in terms of plugging the finance gap.

Where is the money coming from? Al Mal claims Nasr has confirmed the origin about USD 7.5 bn of the funding: Saudi Arabia has agreed to deposit USD 2 bn at the CBE and the government will borrow USD 1 bn from China. A combined total of USD 4.5 bn will come from the African Development Bank (AfDB) and World Bank. Nasr said the World Bank will vote on a USD 500 mn financial assistance package to develop Upper Egypt on 17 September. In total, Egypt is set to receive USD 3.0 bn from the World Bank and USD 1.5 bn from the AfDB, Youm7 says.

Both ministers refuted rumors that there was division within the cabinet economic group about how to best employ the IMF loan. You can watch the press conference in Arabic (runtime: 24:35)

We may also be seeing an influx of FDI from China: The government is talking about building a 1,000 MW solar power plant and a solar panel factory using USD 3.3 bn in financing from China. International Cooperation Minister said the project would be implemented over two phases, each of about 500 MW. The international cooperation, electricity, and military production ministers discussed the fast-track project on Tuesday. President Abdel Fattah El Sisi will be in China on 4-5 September for a state visit coinciding with the G20 summit.