CAIRO: The International Monetary Fund said yesterday it would continue talks with Egypt aimed at agreeing possible financial aid after meeting with government officials seeking a $ 4.8 billion loan to relieve a currency and budget crisis.

The IMF has said Egypt needs to take bold, immediate action to address its economic problems and has raised the possibility of stop-gap funding to tide it through until after parliamentary elections. Egypt, however, has made clear it wants a full loan.

The country agreed to an IMF loan in principle last November but requested a delay during violent street unrest. Since then it has sought to reopen loan talks with the IMF.

"We've had very good progress, and we had very constructive discussions," Masood Ahmed, director of the IMF's Middle East and Central Asia department, told reporters after meeting Prime Minister Hisham Kandil in Cairo.

Both sides agreed on the need to support a national program that addresses Egypt's economic challenges, he said, and in a later statement he welcomed the authorities’ determination to move forward with an economic reform program.

"We agreed that our discussions would continue diligently over the coming weeks with the aim of reaching agreement on possible financial support from the IMF," he said.

Kandil told Ahmed that Egypt's amended economic reform program took a more gradual approach to lowering the budget deficit than the version used in last November's agreement, "in light of preserving growth rates, employment and protecting the poor", an Egyptian government statement said.

Ahmed also met central bank Gov. Hisham Ramez, Finance Minister Al-Mursi Al-Sayed Hegazy and Planning Minister Ashraf Al-Araby.

Egypt's government faces daunting economic and political problems two years after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak.