Good morning, friends, and a very happy FRIDAY to us all. We’re in the back half of the month, and some of us have already started taking our kids to school this past week — while the rest will follow suit soon enough. But for now, we hope you’re in Sahel, or by the beach elsewhere, because…

☀️ THE WEATHER THIS WEEKEND- It’s going to be another warm couple of days, with the mercury peaking today and tomorrow at 40°C. Things will cool off a little bit in the evenings — expect today’s nighttime low to come in at 25°C, and tomorrow’s at 24°C, our favorite weather app suggests.

Enterprise Weekend comes out each Friday at 9:00am CLT. We’ll be back on Sunday at 6am with EnterpriseAM. Until then: Enjoy the weekend.

LAST WEEK IN 3 MINS- Besides the litany of 2Q / 1H 2023 earnings releases, we had a week that was somewhat heavy on privatization and energy news, although there were few unifying themes throughout.

PRIVATIZATION WATCH-

The government is looking for a higher price for Gabal El Zeit wind farm: The Madbouly government is in talks with Actis in a bid to convince the UK-based emerging markets private equity giant to pay USD 600-800 mn for the 580-MW Gabal El Zeit wind farm after the company had originally submitted an offer of USD 400 mn.

REMEMBER- Gabal El Zeit is among 32 companies the government earmarked for privatization earlier this year, along with state-owned Zafarana wind farm. The Sovereign Fund of Egypt (SFE) has provided Actis with full data on the wind farm so that it can conduct due diligence ahead of making a final offer. The government is now looking to finalize an agreement with Actis by the end of October.

Agthia is out on Safi: ADQ-owned food company Agthia is no longer looking to acquire military-owned bottled beverage firm Safi.Agthia was in May expected to be among the bidders for Safi, which is on track to sell a minority stake sale under the government’s privatization program.

AND- Misr Hotels Company isn’t looking to offload a majority stake and has received no offers from local companies for an acquisition, the company said in response to claims that a number of unnamed local firms are looking to submit an offer to acquire a majority stake in the company.

ENERGY-

Total gas output in Egypt fell 5% q-o-q in 2Q 2023 to 5.88 bn cubic feet per day (cf/d), its lowest since 2Q 2020. Output was down 9% compared with the same period a year before, and nearly 1.2 bn cf/d below the record of 7.07 bn cf/d in 3Q 2021 as output in offshore and onshore fields fell.

Zohr is among those reportedly producing less: Eni’s giant Zohr field saw record output of 2.76 bn cf/d in 3Q 2021 but output has now been effectively capped at 2.3 bn cf/d. The Italian firm’s flagship field saw output drop by 11% y-o-y in 2022 to 2.5 bn cfd and the government recently confirmed that the field is currently producing 2.3 bn cf/d.

Green hydrogen plant in SCZone could break ground in 2024: India’s ReNew Power could break ground on its USD 8 bn green hydrogen plant in the Suez Canal Economic Zone early next year. Technical studies are now in motion before a final investment decision is made, which is expected to come sometime between November and March.

ALSO- The world’s first-ever green methanol-powered container ship docked in East Port Said Port on Monday and began bunkering at the port yesterday . The vessel’s inaugural journey began in Asia and is passing through the Suez Canal on its way to Europe.

FOREIGN EXCHANGE-

USD-denominated pension certificates for Egyptians living abroad were rolled out this week. State institutions invited Egyptian citizens living abroad to purchase new USD-denominated pension certificates as part of the government’s efforts to attract new hard currency inflows and ease the deepening FX crunch. The pension schemes are designed to encourage expats aged 18-59 to make additional retirement savings by depositing FX in the Egyptian banking system.

A little under a month to make good on payments for the state’s expat car import initiative: Some 84k Egyptian expats who have registered for the expat car import initiative and received payment invoices will have to complete their payments within a month from 13 August to obtain import approvals.

The cabinet also reviewed recommendations for its plan to attract hard currency through the sale of Egyptian real estate to both foreigners and Egyptian expats. A number of draft laws aimed at encouraging foreign ownership of real estate will soon be sent to the cabinet, but details on the legislation are still scarce.

THERE WERE ALSO A FEW UPDATES ON THE ECONOMY FRONT-

The budget deficit came in lower than expected last FY: Egypt’s budget deficit narrowed to 6.0% in FY 2022-23, from 6.1% in the previous fiscal year. Preliminary indicators released last month suggested a deficit of 6.2%, while the Finance Ministry put the figure at 6.4% in a May estimate.

AS WELL AS IN COMMODITIES-

The UAE is supplying us with wheat: Egypt signed a USD 500 mn agreement to purchase wheat from Emirati agribusiness Al Dahra. The pact will see Egypt import USD 100 mn of milling wheat a year over a five-year period with financing provided by the Abu Dhabi Exports Office (ADEX).

AND BANKING-

CBE rejected easing concentration risk rules: The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) declined a request by the Federation of Egyptian Banks to bring back exemptions that would exclude their largest clients from credit concentration limits until December 2024. The CBE exempted banks’ 50 largest clients from credit concentration limits in 2020 in response to the pandemic but that exemption expired at the end of last year.

WHAT’S HAPPENING NEXT WEEK-

The National Dialogue continues: Participants will continue to hold sessions to agree recommendations to submit to President Abdel Fattah El Sisi in the coming weeks, Al Masry Al Youm reports. While El Sisi previously said he would agree to all of the proposals handed to him, the board of trustees will in some cases submit conflicting recommendations for him to choose from, as we’ve reported earlier, which will require him to make decisions based on proposals they submit.

Investors will be able to make bids for industrial land from Wednesday 16 August through Wednesday 27 September under a new phase of the Industrial Development Authority’s (IDA) investment map. Some 1.7 mn sqm of land across 14 governorates will be offered to industrial investors. The entire offering will take place on IDA’s website.

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

YOUR MOST CLICKED LINKS-

  • A lot of you seemed interested in registering to settle outstanding military obligations with FX, judging by the number of clicks on the registration links. (Website)
  • The Industrial Development Authority’s list of 152 potential projects for industrial investment also got a lot of interest. (Statement, pdf).
  • The extension of Moody’s review of a potential downgrade of our sovereign credit rating also got a lot of clicks. (Statement, pdf)
  • US Democratic lawmakers’ petition to Secretary of State Antony Blinken to withhold a quarter of Egypt’s annual USD 1.3 bn of military aid on human rights grounds was another popular read. (Statement, pdf)
  • Plenty of you were curious about USAID Egypt’s new mission director, Sean Jones. (LinkedIn)

CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

The Enterprise Finance Forum is taking place on 18-19 September at the St. Regis Hotel in Cairo. This flagship forum is the latest in our must-attend series of invitation-only, C-suite-level gatherings that allow senior members of our community to openly and frankly discuss critical issues in key sectors of the economy.

TAP OR CLICK HERE if you want to express interest in attending. We’ll be sending out the first batch of invitations soon.

Do you want to become a commercial partner? Ping a note to Moustafa Taalab, our head of commercial.

LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST-

MISSED OUR PREVIOUS FORUMS? The EnterprisePodcast has you covered : The Enterprise Podcast’s forum series has been bringing you audio recordings of what was said on stage at the Enterprise Exports and FDI Forum and Enterprise Climate Forum.

WANT TO LISTEN? Head to: Apple Podcast | Spotify | Google Podcast | Anghami.

IN THIS WEEK’S EPISODE- It’s the very first panel of the Enterprise Climate Forum: Egypt brought home major victories from COP27, signing framework agreements for about USD 85 bn worth of green hydrogen projects, and announcing more than USD 10 bn in funding for the Nexus for Food, Water and Energy (NWFE) program. While we have a long way to go before much of the wins from COP27 will be tangible to the private sector, the opportunities in green hydrogen and NWFE are “now.” Our panelists helped explain how these two can be made actionable. We were joined by Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, CEO of Hydrogen Europe, Khalid Hamza, Director and head of Egypt at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and Khaled Naguib, CEO of Hydrogen Egypt.

AROUND THE WORLD IN SEVEN DAYS-

Trump’s indictment over efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 elections has been getting wide coverage in the international press: Former US President Donald Trump faces his fourth criminal charge after he and 18 allies were indicted by a grand jury in Georgia in relation to alleged efforts to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential elections in the US. The indictment accuses Trump and his aides of criminal enterprise and comes amid mounting legal challenges for the former US president, who has seen persistent investigation into his actions surrounding the 2020 elections in recent months.

Raging wildfires in Hawaii and subsequent search and rescue efforts are still getting ink: The wildfires that decimated a historic Hawaiian neighborhood on the island of Maui has been deemed the worst natural disaster in the islands’ history and the deadliest wildfire in the US in a century after the death toll breached 93. Hundreds are still missing as search and rescue efforts — which have so far covered 25% of the affected site — continue to seek out survivors and identify bodies left behind in the blaze.

The international press also zoned in on China putting an end to its youth jobless data: After months of weaker than expected economic performance, the world’s second largest economy decided to temporarily suspend publishing youth unemployment figures, which reached record highs of 21.3% in June. This comes after poor retail performance and weaker industrial production in July, as well as interest rate cuts enacted by China’s central bank earlier this week.

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND-

It’s the last day for El Sawy CultureWheel’s annual book fair . The fair includes different events which include discussions, book signings and even cultural competitions.

The New Alamein Festival is back with Angham today. Tickets are available on Tazkarti.

HAPPENING NEXT WEEKEND-

Russ is coming to New Alamein. American pop star Russ will be performing as part of the New Alamein Festival on Friday, 25 August. Tickets are available on Tazkarti.

Get some more laughs over the weekend with The Elite Standup on Friday, 25 August at Paragon Beach Hub, New Alamein. The show will start at 7pm. Tickets are available on Tazkarti.

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