Egyptian Minister for International Cooperation, Sahar Nasr, announced on August 18 that Saudi Arabia is going to deposit $2bn at the Central Bank of Egypt, in respect to an agreement signed by the two nations.

The accord which according to the Minister is part of bilateral conventions signed last April between Cairo and Riyadh, as Saudi Arabia’s king, Salman bin Abdulaziz, visited Egypt, was not announced before.

Egypt is currently trying to secure $5-$6bn of bilateral funding to implement a three-year loan program for which the government signed a preliminary agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on August 11, 2016.

The most populated Arab nation has already secured from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) $4 billion of aid for a program. Out of this amount, $2 billion went to the Central Bank as deposit and the rest was borrowed.

Similarly to Kuwait and the UAE, Saudi Arabia has over the past years provided Egypt with billions of dollars of aid in the form of fuel, cash grants as well as deposits to the Central Bank.

These three Gulf monarchies provided overall more than $25 billion of aid to Cairo since the fall of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in 2013. Quite hostile against the Muslim Brothers, of which the fallen President was part, the three nations are now trying to insure a successful term for the actual President and former Chief of Army Staff, Abdel Fattah al Sissi.