The size of a long-awaited International Monetary Fund loan to Egypt may change depending on the assessment of the country's modified economic plan by a technical team due in Cairo on Wednesday, a senior IMF official said Tuesday.

"Depending on Egypt's needs and the assessment of our team that will be in Egypt tomorrow to hold talks with Egyptian officials, the amount of the loan may vary, less or more," Masood Ahmed, head of the fund's Middle East department, told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview.

Egyptian officials said on Monday that they plan to pitch a newly amended economic plan to the IMF's technical committee during their visit.

The country has a "newly amended national financial and socio-economic reform program that will be presented to the IMF," Ashraf al-Arabi, Egypt's planning and international cooperation minister said, adding that he was positive his country would reach a "staff level agreement with the IMF regarding the loan," based on that plan.

Mr. Ahmed said talks with Egypt have "so far been good," and that he was looking forward to seeing his technical team's assessment of the reworked economic plan.

Part of the intended economic reforms that Egypt plans to enforce include smart cards to ration fuel subsidies. "Any consumption outside the ration would be subsidy free. We started with the gas, and plan to introduce fuel rations as of July 1," Mr. Arabi said.

The country also plans to reduce its budget deficit of 185 billion Egyptian pounds ($27 billion), or 10.8% of gross domestic product, to 9.4% of GDP in 2014 and 8.5% of GDP in 2015.
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