Good morning, folks, and welcome to the penultimate week of Ramadan. It’s the first slow news morning of the Holy Month — the perfect way to start a new week, if you ask us.

A very Happy Easter to all of our readers observing the Western Easter holiday.

Good news for the tired souls among us: This will be our last full work week of the month.

  • Coptic Easter falls on Sunday, 16 April. It’s typically a bank holiday, but not a national holiday (though it should be);
  • Monday, 17 April is a public holiday for both the public and private sector to mark Sham El Nessim. Look for confirmation this week that the EGX and central bank will follow suit;
  • Eid El Fitr should land on or around Friday, 21 April,and Tuesday, 25 April is Sinai Liberation Day.

The caveat: Cabinet has yet to make clear what days we will observe as national holidays in the 21-25 April window. Are you planning to bridge?

** SO, WHEN DO WE EAT? We’ll be breaking our fasts at 6:18pm CLT today. You have until 4:05am tomorrow morning to hydrate and grab a bite to eat.

PSA #1- We’re heading into a week of changeable weather with a good chance of wind and rain in much of the country throughout the week, particularly on the North and Red Sea coasts. In the Greater Cairo Area, things are starting off hot, with the Egyptian Meteorological Authority (EMA) forecasting a daytime high of 35°C and a nighttime low of 19°C tonight. The rest of the week will be much cooler, with highs of 25°C and lows of 15°C. Our favorite weather app has the mercury as low as 22°C by day and 12°C by night at points this week.

PSA #2- We’re bringing back daylight saving time (yet again) on Friday, 28 April. You’ll be losing an hour’s sleep as clocks jump forward one hour until the final Thursday of October.

HIGH-YIELD CDs-

Emirates NBD Egypt and United Bank of Egypt have brought new, high-interest rate certificates of deposit to the market.

  • Emirates NBD has launched three-year CDs, with annual rates of 18.5% (with annual interest payments), 18.25% (quarterly interest), or 18.00% (monthly payouts), the bank said in an emailed statement. The minimum buy-in is EGP 100k.
  • State-owned United Bank Egypt is also out with fresh CDs, offering three-year sharia-compliant certificates at a variable rate of at least 19%. Interest on the certificates is paid monthly and the minimum deposit is EGP 1k.

CIB has discontinued its 22% CD and is replacing it with a series of three-year, 18-20% annual-rate certificates, according to the bank’s website. Savers will need to commit at least EGP 1 mn to lock in 20%, EGP 200k to access the 19% rate, and 10k for 18%. Interest payouts are monthly.

BACKGROUND- Private lenders including aiBank and Al Baraka Bank Egypt have followed the lead of state-owned banks NBE, Banque Misr, and Banque du Caire and launched new certificates of depositin the wake of the central bank’s decision last month to raise interest rates by another 200 bps.

PRIVATIZATION WATCH-

Is the Export Development Bank earmarked for privatization? The Madbouly government is considering including the EGX-listed Export Development Bank (Ebank) in its rebooted privatization program, Al Mal reports, citing unnamed sources it says have knowledge of the matter. A preliminary study is underway to explore the idea, which would see the bank bring on board new investors via a capital increase, the sources reportedly said.

Ownership + financials: Ebank is 84% owned by state financial institutions, with the National Investment Bank holding the controlling 40.75% stake. Banque Misr owns 23.1% and the National Bank of Egypt has a 19.8% stake. The bank’s net income more than doubled to

EGP 1.34 bn in 2022 thanks to high interest rates, which drove a 60% increase in net interest income, according to its most recent financials (pdf).

DATA POINTS-

#1- More of us are banked than ever before: Egypt’s financial inclusion rate — the percentage of citizens above the age of 16 who hold a bank account, mobile wallet or pre-paid card — jumped to 64.8% by the end of 2022, according to central bank data. Some 42.3 mn adults in Egypt were banked as of December 2022, almost 43% of whom were women.

#2- The country’s trade deficit fell 47% y-o-y in January to USD 2.48 bn, according to CAPMAS data (pdf).Exports fell 7% y-o-y to USD 3.85 bn, while imports plunged 28% to USD 6.33 bn.

ZOOMING OUT- Global trade hit a record USD 32 tn in 2022 — but dropped off in the final quarter of the year,according to UNCTAD’s latest Global Trade report (pdf). Deteriorating economic conditions and inflationary pressure saw global trade decline in 4Q — but UNCTAD remains upbeat, saying that trade is expected to remain resilient this year despite geopolitical instability and uncertainty over the economic outlook.

#3- The expat car import scheme is yet to pick up steam: The scheme has brought in just USD 385 mn since its launch in November, Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said yesterday. That’s still far short of the Finance Ministry’s ambitious USD 2.5 bn target. Around 600 cars have entered the country under the program.The Madbouly government last month extended the program another two months; it is scheduled to close on 14 May.

#4- Some 26.5k dual-fuel cars have been delivered by the government since 2021 under its swap scheme aimed at reducing the number of petrol-fulled cars on the roads, the Finance Ministry said.

A changing target? The government had said it wants to replace 250k old cars with dual-fuel models by the end of 2023. That plan dates to 2019, and we expect the 250k-car target will fall by the wayside in light of the state’s twin emphasis since mid-2022 on (a) electric vehicles and (b) boosting exports of natural gas to Europe.

#5- Global food prices fell again in March: Global food prices fell for the 12th consecutive month in March, according to the UN food price index. Food prices have cooled on better supply and lower import demand after spiking in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The index fell 2.1% m-o-m to 126.9 points.

HAPPENING TODAY-

The Senate is back in session after a 12-day break. The upper house of parliament will look into a report recommending the government work on building a circular economy — a model that incentivizes markets to limit waste and reuse as much as possible, putting sustainability at the heart of production and consumption.

FDI and exports are on the agenda for some Senate committees:

  • The Agriculture Committee is looking at policies to boost agricultural exports to bring in more foreign currency;
  • The Industrial Committee will discuss the Industrial Development Authority’s role in simplifying industrial licensing procedures, which could help draw foreign investment.

Tomorrow: The Senate will discuss a report on government efforts to save water by modernizing irrigation systems.

Later this week: Cabinet ministers present the next fiscal year’s budget to MPs. Finance Minister Mohamed Maait and Planning Minister Hala El Said will deliver statements on the new FY 2023-2024 budget in the House of Representatives on Tuesday and Wednesday.

HAPPENING TOMORROW-

Don’t look: Monday is inflation day. Capmas and the Central Bank of Egypt will publish inflation data for March tomorrow, and it’s expected to be another difficult read.

Headline inflation will likely soar to a record high on the back of the foreign-currency shortage, EGP devaluation and higher fuel prices, according to a Reuters poll of analysts. The median forecast of 13 analysts puts inflation at 33.6% in March, up from 31.9% the month prior and surpassing the all-time high of 32.95% in July 2017. Capital Economics is forecasting an even higher figure of 37.1%. “We think that earlier falls in the [EGP] will continue to feed through into Egypt’s inflation, pushing up both food and non-food inflation,” the research firm wrote in a note.

The IMF / World Bank Spring Meetings get underway in Washington: Global finance chiefs will converge on the two lenders’ headquarters in Washington, DC, to discuss the state of the global economy. Expect central banks’ struggle to balance bringing down inflation with protecting growth and financial stability to dominate the agenda amid uncertainty in the global financial markets triggered by the US banking crisis. The meetings run until Sunday, 16 April.

Global economy to see its weakest growth since 1990 this year: The IMF expects global economic growth to fall below 3% and remain around that figure for the next five years, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said at an event hosted by the Meridian International Center and Politico. The global lender’s “lowest medium-term growth forecast since 1990” comes on the back of geopolitical tensions, persistent inflation, and financial vulnerabilities exposed by the recent failures of banks in the US and Switzerland. Global GDP growth almost halved to 3.4% in 2022 on the back of the fallout from the war in Ukraine.

The news is everywhere in the foreign business press:Politico |Associated Press | Reuters | Financial Times | Bloomberg | BBC.

** We’ll find out the details of the IMF’s prognosis for the global economy on Monday when it releases its full World Economic Outlook.

Brownfield gold mining tender launches tomorrow: Shalateen Mineral Resources will on Monday invite international companies to bid in a gold mining tender for brownfield sites in the Eastern Desert, it said in a statement Friday. The company — whose major shareholders are the Egyptian Mineral Resources Authority, the military’s National Service Projects Organization, and the National Investment Bank — is offering concessions in five areas in the Eastern Desert. The tender will close on 10 August.

ALSO-It’s deadline day for NGOs to register with the government: All local and foreign NGOs have to register with the government by 11 April under the 2019 NGO Law.

THE BIG STORY ABROAD-

The US press is focused on what appears to be a major leak of military intelligence to the internet. Western officials are said to be “stunned and infuriated” that detailed and highly classified documents — including on the war in Ukraine and US spying operations around the globe — have ended up circulating online.

Misinformation? US officials say Moscow is likely behind the leak, while Kyiv is claiming some of the files are “fictitious” and part of a Russian disinformation campaign. Our advice: Maintain a critical eye and get your news from trusted sources as this story unfolds. (Financial Times | Reuters | New York Times | CNBC | Wall Street Journal)

MORNING MUST READ-

It’s looking like the year of layoffs: US employers announced some 90k job cuts in March, more than four times the number in the same month last year, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. data. This pushes the total number of jobs lost in 1Q 2023 to 270k, nearly five times more than last year’s 56k.

US tech companies announced a whopping 102k job cuts last quarter. The figure in 1Q 2022? Just 267. (See: mass layoffs at Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft, to name just a few.) That puts the tech sector on track to mark the most cuts ever for the full year. The standing record is 2001, after the dot-com bubble burst and 168k people found themselves out of a job.

We are delighted to share with you that the Enterprise Exports & FDI Forum will be taking place on Monday, 15 May at the Four Seasons Hotel at Nile Plaza.

DO YOU WANT TO ATTEND? The first wave of invites is going out soon. If you’re a C-suite exec, exporter, investor, official, banker, or someone who should be part of the conversation, please TAP OR CLICK HEREto request a spot at this exclusive event.

WANT TO BECOME A COMMERCIAL PARTNER? Ping a note to Moustafa, our head of commercial, here.

Check out our full calendar on the web for a comprehensive listing of upcoming news events, national holidays and news triggers.

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