The International Monetary Fund will start talks for the final review of Egypt’s $8 billion loan program after this month’s annual meetings and aims to sign off by December, a top official said.

Once the review is concluded, “we can discuss with the authorities what are their plans, what are their priorities, and if they want another program or not,” Jihad Azour, the IMF’s director for the Middle East, said in an interview at the fund’s gathering in Bangkok, Thailand.

The Mideast’s most populous country more than doubled its existing IMF deal in early 2024, part of a wider global bailout that saw Egypt’s authorities float the currency and pledge to offload state assets. The program is subject to periodic reviews that are closely watched by investors and unlock loan tranches when cleared.

Egypt’s government hasn’t indicated that it will seek a follow-up program. “If authorities decide to request another one, we will look into it,” Azour said.

Azour also said Egypt’s deployment of a more flexible pound helped it weather the impact of the almost eight-month-old Iran war.

“It helped Egypt cushion the economy from the external shock” and “provided additional confidence to investors,” he said. While significant amounts of portfolio investment initially exited, “inflows recovered very fast and allowed even the spreads on Egypt bonds to converge very quickly and to narrow.”

Azour also suggested Egypt’s central bank, which froze a roughly yearlong cycle of gradual interest-rate cuts when the conflict began in February, remains “very vigilant.”Keeping “monetary policy sufficiently tight to contain inflation will be important” and should be “coupled with the transparent implementation” of any changes to fuel prices, he said.