Riyadh Saudi Arabian finance minister Ebrahim Al Assaf confirmed Saturday that the kingdom will proceed with an aid package for Egypt despite the recent political dispute between the two countries.
"We are taking procedures to execute the aid package," Al Assaf said, in the highest-level confirmation to date that the aid would go ahead.
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz on Friday ordered the reopening of the kingdom's embassy in Egypt after it had been shut earlier in the wake of angry protests.
The Saudi ambassador had been recalled after protests outside the embassy that were triggered by the arrest of an Egyptian human rights lawyer who the Saudi authorities claimed had drugs in his possession.
Immediate assistance
Earlier on Saturday, the Saudi newspaper Al Watan quoted Egypt's minister of planning and international cooperation Fayza Abu Al Naga as saying that a $3.7 billion (Dh13.58 billion) package of aid from Saudi Arabia had not been disrupted by the dispute and the closure of the embassy.
The kingdom will inject this month a deposit of about $1 billion in Egypt's central bank and had previously granted a loan worth $500 million to support the Egyptian budget, Fayza told the newspaper. Egypt needs financial assistances from its Gulf Arab neighbours to both shore up its own $11 billion budget deficit and to help underwrite a $3.2 billion loan it is currently negotiating with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Difficult situation
The IMF loan will be crucial to repairing the damaged perception of the Egyptian economy among foreign investors and forestalling an imminent currency devaluation.
