The International Monetary Fund remains ready to provide aid to Egypt when Cairo requests it, a senior IMF official said on Tuesday without elaborating on when that might happen. "We have some technical work already underway and we will be very ready and keen to support them when they think the time is right in terms of financing," Masood Ahmed, the IMF's Director for the Middle East and North Africa, told a news conference in Dubai. Egypt and the IMF have had a sometimes tense relationship because of national pride and the international lender's efforts to persuade Cairo to undertake politically sensitive economic reforms such as subsidy cuts, Euronews reported. For over two years the two sides have sporadically discussed the possibility of an IMF loan to Egypt that could be worth dlrs 4.8 billion, but no final agreement has been reached.