The IMF, which is in talks with Egypt over a $3.2 billion loan, had also asked to see the group, said Essam el-Haddad, the group's adviser on foreign affairs. "What we agreed to was the principle of dealing with the IMF. But as for the details, we do not know because we are not an executive arm as yet," he said.
Western embassies have hosted seminars where Brotherhood policy makers have mingled with bankers and investors. EFG-Hermes, a Cairo-based investment bank, says it has taken its foreign clients to meet the group.
The emerging view is that the Brotherhood, whose leaders include entrepreneurs who managed to run small empires even from jail, is open to business. That even applies to a tourism industry largely built around Red Sea beach resorts where women wear bikinis and alcohol is freely available.
Though the group had been cagey about the possibility of tighter restrictions on alcohol, for example, nobody expects it to risk driving away the foreign visitors and their cash which is so vital to Egypt's economy.
Yet there is concern over whether the group has the experience to steer macropolicy. A statement of opposition to a World Bank loan set alarm bells ringing among economists who say Egypt badly needs such funds to support economic growth.
It is difficult to underestimate the scale of the challenge facing the Brotherhood as it seeks to change government in a country run right from the top for decades. It will not have everything its own way: its relationship with the military and the new president will likely define the scope for change.
And while the group has found a receptive audience in the Foreign Ministry, other institutions may be less cooperative.
PUSHING THROUGH NEW LEGISLATION
The Brotherhood has spoken of a need to purge the Interior Ministry of remnants of the Mubarak apparatus, a move that will likely revive old hostilities with security forces more used to arresting Islamists than taking orders from them.
Though Mubarak mostly depicted the group as an enemy of the state, the Brotherhood renounced violence decades ago, separating it from more hardline groups behind the militancy of the 1980s and 1990s. Anwar Sadat, Mubarak's predecessor, was killed by Islamist soldiers-turned-assassins in 1981.
The Brotherhood's lingering suspicion of the state has immediately become apparent in the kind of bills its MPs have introduced to parliament.
One amendment will prevent the referral of civilians to military courts where for decades Brotherhood members were sentenced in summary fashion. Another will adjust the rules for the forthcoming presidential election to make the vote count more transparent, said Mohamed Beltagi, a Brotherhood MP.
"It's so that there cannot be central control of the result procedures," Beltagi told Reuters. Under the amendment, the election results will be announced at local polling stations as the votes are counted rather than all at once in Cairo.
He expressed irritation that the military council had issued the presidential election law just days before parliament convened for the first time, denying it the chance to debate the bill. It was one of several cases of the army trying to "preempt events and confiscate the future", he said.
In the assessment of another Western diplomat, the Brotherhood are acting like "serious decision-makers who are willing to take criticism for long term-gain".
Parts of the Egyptian civil service, such as the Foreign Ministry, had started adjusting to the idea they will run the next government.
"I think a subtle recalibration is happening where a range of officials are - of their own volition - trying to be responsive to the Muslim Brotherhood before it emerges to lead a new coalition government," the diplomat said.
"It won't be plain sailing. These are officials who have dealt with the same masters for a generation."
(Additional reporting by Ayman Samir; Writing by Tom Perry, editing by Peter Millership)
(AP Photo: Saad el-Katatni, a lawmaker from the Muslim Brotherhood and newly nominated Parliament Speaker, top center, and Prime Minister Kamal el-Ganzouri attend an emergency working session in the Egyptian parliament in Cairo, Egypt, Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012.)
