In a sign that Egypt’s fragile economic recovery is making progress, 2024 ended with monthly inflation slowing to its lowest level in two years, and 2025 began with the North African nation set to receive a $1.2 billion payout from the International Monetary Fund. 

Heading into 2024, deepening economic crisis and growing pressures gripped the Arab world’s most populous country as Houthi rebel attacks on Red Sea shipping deprived Cairo of badly needed Suez Canal revenues. Facing record inflation and crippling currency shortages, heavily indebted Egypt teetered toward financial meltdown in January 2024, until a global bailout worth nearly $60 billion took shape.

A historic $35 billion investment from the UAE in February 2024 kicked started Egypt's timely rescue, which delivered hard currency and paved the way for the Central Bank to float the pound and hike interest rates 6% — delivering on the IMF's requirements for unlocking an expanded $8 billion financial support package in March. Other backers soon followed, including the European Union, which offered up an aid package roughly totaling $8 billion. 

Egypt has come a long way, as the first anniversary of its breakthrough approaches, but Cairo still has work to do, according to Pieter du Preez, senior economist at Oxford Economics Africa. “2024 was the turning point, but the country is still some two years off reaching macroeconomic stability,” du Preez told Al-Monitor.