IFC plans up to $2 bln investment in Egyptian infrastructure, power

The World Bank's development arm plans to invest between $1.2 billion and $2 billion in Egypt over the next four years, including around the Suez Canal, its regional director told Reuters.

The International Finance Corporation is looking at ports and logistics projects, Mouayed Makhlouf, the IFC's director of Middle East and North Africa, said in an interview.

The government is building a second waterway to accelerate trade flows through the canal, already one of Egypt's major sources of foreign currency.

Besides infrastructure and energy projects, IFC is working with United Arab Emirates' renewable energy company Masdar and Saudi Arabia-based power and water project developer ACWA Power, in which it invested $100 million in last year, on up to three or four renewable energy projects in Egypt, Makhlouf said.

IFC has already invested $1 billion in Egypt since Hosni Mubarak was ousted as president in 2011. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will also need its help to target between $200 billion and $300 billion of investment to sustain the economy's rebound from a popular uprising four years ago.