A senior IMF official said inflationary impact of Egypt’s possible IMF reform should not be too high, according to Bloomberg. “If you look at what’s happening to prices today, already many prices are reflecting the parallel market rate,” IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia chief Masood Ahmed says in an interview in Dubai. “So it is not obvious to me there is going to be a big additional impact on prices because of that reason.” Ahmed also added that “there  is no deadline” for Egypt to implement reforms needed by the IMF board to consider a USD12bn loan request. “But the more important point is that delays on important areas they’re trying to address, such as the problem they have in the foreign-exchange market, would have a high cost on the economy.” “If people are expecting that the exchange rate will only move in one direction, then they’re less likely to bring dollars into the economy, and it’s the bringing in of those dollars that will effectively get the economy moving forward” “Nobody would expect” local energy prices to go to global levels ‘overnight’. Ahmed hopes the IMF board will consider Egypt’s loan by end October or in November. (Bloomberg)