The World Bank has approved on Sunday the Egyptian government’s request to extend the lender’s Affordable Mortgage Finance Program Development Policy Loan Program for Egypt until December 31, 2014.
This comes in order to offset the slowdown witnessed by WB’s Affordable Mortgage Finance DPL program due to the recent disruption of construction works.
Sahar Nasr, the Lead Financial Economist for the Middle East and North Africa Region, has referred to the state of instability following 2011 Revolution in Egypt that reversely affected the construction works in the country and disrupted the WB’s program.
Nasr has noted that the WB program had financed only US $ 50 million during the period from September 2009 till December 2013. Therefore, an amount of US $ 250 million finances have not been utilized yet.
The Affordable Mortgage Finance Program Development Loan (DPL), a US$300 million project co-financed by the World Bank. It aims to reform the existing system of subsidies for low income housing, by shifting the current inefficient and poorly targeted supply-side subsidies (going to the developers) to a transparent and economically efficient demand-side system (going directly to low income households).
