NEW YORK, May 6 (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund said on Thursday it reached a staff-level agreement with Honduras and proposed to raise total support to $769 million to help the central American country recover from two hurricanes and the coronavirus pandemic. The fund had initially planned to provide $554 through a Stand-By Arrangement and a Stand-by Credit Facility. “The increase is justified in the context of balance of payments needs brought on by the tropical storms and continued pandemic,” said Joyce Wong, the Fund’s team leader for Honduras. The COVID-19 pandemic and hits by tropical storms Eta and Iota lead to a sharp economic contraction in 2020 that will only be partly reversed in 2021, the Fund said. The agreement is subject to approval by the IMF’s Executive Board, tentatively scheduled for June. (Reporting by Rodrigo Campos, editing by Karin Strohecker) Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.