The disbursement will be made available when the IMF executive board approves the latest review of Egypt’s three-year programme, which was published earlier this week.

The money would come from the country’s $12bn extended fund facility from the IMF, which provides loans with generous repayment conditions to assist countries implementing medium-term structural reforms.

The extra $2bn would bring the total funds given to the programme to $10bn.

IMF staff that conducted the review said in a statement on Wednesday that Egypt’s economy had “continued to perform well” as a result of the reforms.

The statement said: “The government also remains committed to continuing energy subsidy reforms and raising revenues which will help create fiscal savings to invest in a well targeted social safety net, human development including health and education, and infrastructure.”

It added that Egypt should focus on improving transparency and accountability of state-owned enterprises and fighting corruption, which will help the private sector grow and boost job creation.

The review will be presented to the IMF board, which will have to approve it before the additional funds can be disbursed.

The team said growth had accelerated from 4.2% in 2016/17 to 5.3% in 2017/18. It added that the account deficit narrowed to 2.4% of GDP in 2017/18 from 5.6% the year before.

The Egyptian government started implementing reforms in 2014. The first programmes focused on rebalancing the economy and included the introduction of a VAT law.

The second round of reforms was aimed at improving governance, through civil service reforms and policies to attract more investment.