Latest news with #ExtendedFundFacility
See - Sada Elbalad
2 days ago
- Business
- See - Sada Elbalad
IMF Approves $834 Million in Support for Jordan
Israa Farhan The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has announced the release of about $834 million in funding for Jordan, aimed at supporting long-term economic reforms and enhancing resilience in critical sectors such as water and electricity. According to a statement from the IMF, Jordan will gain access to 611.78 million Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), equivalent to roughly $834 million, under two financial arrangements. The fund has completed the third review of Jordan's Extended Fund Facility (EFF) agreement, enabling immediate access to 97.784 million SDRs (about $134 million). Additionally, Jordan is set to receive $700 million through the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF). This financial package is designed to help Jordan address long-term structural challenges in its utility sectors, bolster emergency public health responses, and enhance economic resilience. The RSF component, in particular, will support reforms that strengthen the country's external position and improve sustainability, the IMF said. Jordan has shown promising economic performance, achieving 2.5% growth in 2024 and continuing into 2025, surpassing earlier forecasts. This upward trend reflects the country's resilience amid regional instability and global economic pressures. In January 2024, the IMF's Executive Board approved a four-year Extended Fund Facility program for Jordan, with a total allocation of around $1.3 billion. The program focuses on advancing fiscal discipline, improving public sector efficiency, and fostering private sector-led growth. The IMF reaffirmed its commitment to working closely with Jordanian authorities to implement structural reforms that ensure long-term economic stability and social development. read more Gold prices rise, 21 Karat at EGP 3685 NATO's Role in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict US Expresses 'Strong Opposition' to New Turkish Military Operation in Syria Shoukry Meets Director-General of FAO Lavrov: confrontation bet. nuclear powers must be avoided News Iran Summons French Ambassador over Foreign Minister Remarks News Aboul Gheit Condemns Israeli Escalation in West Bank News Greek PM: Athens Plays Key Role in Improving Energy Security in Region News One Person Injured in Explosion at Ukrainian Embassy in Madrid News China Launches Largest Ever Aircraft Carrier Sports Former Al Zamalek Player Ibrahim Shika Passes away after Long Battle with Cancer Videos & Features Tragedy Overshadows MC Alger Championship Celebration: One Fan Dead, 11 Injured After Stadium Fall Lifestyle Get to Know 2025 Eid Al Adha Prayer Times in Egypt Business Fear & Greed Index Plummets to Lowest Level Ever Recorded amid Global Trade War Arts & Culture Zahi Hawass: Claims of Columns Beneath the Pyramid of Khafre Are Lies News Flights suspended at Port Sudan Airport after Drone Attacks Videos & Features Video: Trending Lifestyle TikToker Valeria Márquez Shot Dead during Live Stream News Shell Unveils Cost-Cutting, LNG Growth Plan Technology 50-Year Soviet Spacecraft 'Kosmos 482' Crashes into Indian Ocean
Jordan News
2 days ago
- Business
- Jordan News
IMF Completes Third Review of Jordan's Economic Program, Unlocks $134 Million - Jordan News
On Wednesday, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the third review of Jordan's Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program, enabling the Jordanian government to access immediate new financing worth 97.784 million Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), approximately USD 134 million, in support of its national economic program. اضافة اعلان This progress is part of the four-year agreement approved in January 2024, with a total value of about USD 1.3 billion (equivalent to 270% of Jordan's IMF quota). With this new disbursement, the total amount received by Jordan under this program has reached approximately USD 595 million. In an official statement, the IMF affirmed that Jordan's program remains firmly on track, reflecting the authorities' commitment to sound macroeconomic policies and structural reforms aimed at strengthening resilience, accelerating growth, and creating job opportunities. Jordan's economy grew by a stronger-than-expected 2.5% in 2024, and it is expected to continue improving gradually in the coming years, supported by continued sound policies and reform implementation. The statement noted that inflation in the Kingdom remains low and stable, while the Central Bank's reserves surpassed the USD 20 billion mark by the end of 2024. The current account has remained stable, with the deficit expected to hover around 6% of GDP. The IMF highlighted the government's ongoing efforts to gradually contain public spending, aiming to reduce public debt and create room for increased social and investment spending. It also praised reforms in the business environment and labor market, particularly those expanding opportunities for women and youth. (Al-Mamlaka)
Roya News
3 days ago
- Business
- Roya News
Jordan secures $700 million funding from IMF
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) successfully completed its third review of Jordan's Extended Fund Facility (EFF) Arrangement, concurrently approving a new $700 million arrangement under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF). The newly approved RSF arrangement, totaling around US$700 million, is specifically designed to address Jordan's long-term vulnerabilities in the vital water and electricity sectors. The EFF arrangement provides Jordan with immediate access to approximately $134 million. Jordan's economy has shown growth in 2024 and early 2025 exceeding initial projections. The country maintains stable and low inflation rates, a robust financial sector, and increasing international reserves. 'Jordan's economic program supported by the EFF arrangement remains firmly on track, demonstrating the authorities' strong commitment to sound macro-economic policies and structural reforms to strengthen Jordan's resilience and accelerate growth to enhance job creation and provide opportunities for all Jordanians,' the IMF said in the statement.
Al-Ahram Weekly
3 days ago
- Business
- Al-Ahram Weekly
UPDATED: Egypt completes second $1bln sovereign sukuk issuance amid regional tensions - Economy
Egypt's Ministry of Finance has completed its second sovereign sukuk issuance, returning to international markets with a $1 billion Shariah-compliant offering via private placement during the current 2024/25 fiscal year, the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. The issuance was executed despite persistent economic headwinds. These heightened geopolitical tensions have increased market volatility and global risk aversion. The statement noted that the successful placement was supported by improvements in Egypt's macroeconomic indicators and financial conditions. The sukuk carries a three-year tenor and offers an annual coupon of 7.875 percent. It forms part of the ministry's broader strategy to diversify funding tools, access new markets, and expand the investor base. The ministry highlighted the move as evidence of its ability to meet financial targets despite ongoing political and economic challenges. This second issuance follows Egypt's inaugural sovereign sukuk in February 2023, part of a $5 billion international sukuk programme. The new offering supports the ministry's goals of extending debt maturities, lowering the cost of external borrowing, and tapping into new pools of capital across different currencies, markets, and investor profiles. Kuwait Finance House is fully subscribed to private placement. One of the world's largest Islamic financial institutions, its participation underscores deepening financial ties between Egypt and Kuwait. It reflects growing confidence in Egypt's economic outlook. The ministry reaffirmed its commitment to reducing foreign debt stock on the state budget by $1–2 billion in 2025. Preliminary indicators suggest the government remains on track to meet that target. Egypt prioritizes diversifying its funding sources beyond traditional debt instruments, seeking to attract Islamic capital from financial centres across the Middle East and Asia. The issuance is expected to help boost foreign currency reserves and support ongoing efforts to narrow the country's funding gap and manage the balance of payments. With plans to raise $2 billion in sukuk by 2025, the programme is central to Egypt's broader fiscal strategy to close deficits and improve debt sustainability. Negotiations are still underway with the International Monetary Fund on the fifth review of Egypt's $8 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF). Officials expect the programme may be extended to 2027—beyond the current end date of September 2026—amid the impact of global and regional disruptions. Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:
Business Recorder
5 days ago
- Business
- Business Recorder
The provincial budgets of FY26
The four provincial budgets were announced last week. The first budget presented was that of Sindh, followed by Punjab, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan. The provincial budgets for 2025-26 are expected to be in line with the projections agreed with the IMF as revealed in the IMF Staff Report of 17th of May. This report was released following the successful completion of the first review of the three-year Extended Fund Facility. There has been a visible shift of focus towards the fiscal performance of provincial governments in the IMF Programme. Performance criteria and indicative targets include the public expenditures on health and education, which are mostly by the provincial governments. In addition, the four provincial governments combined are expected to achieve a target level of tax revenues and a pre-specified level of provincial cash surplus. This is to bring down the consolidated budget deficit and facilitate the achievement of a target level of primary surplus. The IMF Staff Report indicates the following expectations regarding provincial budgets in 2025-26: (i) Growth rate in provincial own-tax revenues of over 27 percent. This is linked to the effective implementation and significant generation of revenues from the new Agricultural Income Tax Act, legislated by each Provincial government in the beginning of 2025. (ii) Moderate growth in current expenditure of under 15 percent, to provide fiscal space for enhanced allocations to education and health. (iii) Modest growth rate of 12 percent in development expenditure from the likely level of Rs 1870 billion in 2024-25 to Rs 2100 billion in 2025-26. (iv) Generation of a sizeable combined provincial cash surplus of Rs 1500 billion, implying a big jump of 50 percent over the likely level of Rs 1000 billion in 2024-25. The above expectations are based on a rapid growth in federal transfers to the four provincial governments combined of 22 percent. The fundamental question is whether the four provincial budgets are consistent with the realisation of the above targets. The first critical magnitude is that of the projected size of federal transfers to the provinces. The federal budget document, Budget in Brief of 2025-26, reveals that the total transfers consisting of NFC Divisible Pool transfers, straight transfers and grants will aggregate to Rs 8206 billion, with the growth rate of 17.3 percent. This is somewhat lower than the expectation of 22 percent growth. The next critical target in the IMF Programme is extraordinary growth in provincial own-tax revenues, facilitated by substantial higher collections from the agricultural income tax. The truly surprising discovery from the four provincial budget documents is that the overall national collection from the agricultural income tax will be only Rs 19 billion. Surely, with the same income tax rate as for non-agricultural incomes and with agricultural incomes approaching 22 percent of the economy, the revenue estimate should have been in hundreds of billions. A feasible target of Rs 150 billion could have been set for the first year in 2025-26, with due allowance for the low outputs from wheat and cotton. Clearly, the powerful lobby of the very large farmers has prevailed once again. There is substantial variation in the budgeted growth of current expenditure in 2025-26 by the four provincial governments. The highest growth rate that has been set is by the government of Sindh at 25.3 percent and the lowest at 0.9 percent by the government of Punjab. Combined the growth rate of current expenditure is 14.8 percent, which is in line with the IMF expectations. However, the four provincial governments have set very ambitious growth rates for development spending. It ranges from a maximum of 43.6 percent in the case of Baluchistan to a low of 11.9 percent in Punjab. Combined, the proposed level of development expenditure is Rs 3105 billion. This is substantial larger than the level indicated for 2025-26 in the IMF Staff Report of Rs 2099 billion. Clearly, the provincial governments are proposing to promote growth through investment in infrastructure and services. We come now to effectively the bottom line, corresponding to the targeted magnitude of the cash surplus by each provincial government. There is substantial variation here also. The government of Punjab hopes to generate a large cash surplus of Rs 943 billion, which is 41 percent higher than the likely level this year. This will be equivalent to 63 percent the combined national targeted cash surplus of Rs 1500 billion indicated by the IMF. The big surprise is that the government of Sindh expects the provincial budget to actually be in deficit of Rs 38 billion. This is very unusual since limits have been placed on borrowings by provincial governments. The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan governments have shown small surpluses of Rs 126 billion and Rs 51 billion, respectively. Overall, given the provincial budgets, the combined provincial cash surplus is targeted at Rs 1082 billion, significantly below the amount revealed in the federal budget of Rs 1500 billion, and Rs 1500 billion also in the IMF Staff Report. Consequently, this will increase the consolidated budget deficit by 0.4 percent of the GDP and reduce the primary surplus from 2 percent to 1.6 percent of the GDP. Overall, the provincial budgets have generally been disappointing. The agricultural income tax is not being effectively implemented. Other taxes like the urban immoveable property tax and the sales tax on services continue to remain underdeveloped. There is under-budgeting of the cost of increasing salaries and pensions, which will further reduce the provincial cash surplus. The time has come for much greater focus on the finances of provincial governments. They now account for 30 percent of national public expenditure but finance only 17 percent of this expenditure. The first time focus in the IMF on key provincial budget magnitudes needs to be sustained and strengthened whenever necessary, especially on mobilization of substantially larger revenues. Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
