Good afternoon, friends, and happy hump day. We hope that it hasn’t blacked out where you are as the rolling power outages continue in Om El Donia.

THE BIG STORIES TODAY

#1- Madbouly addresses the extended blackouts: Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly held a presser today to apologize to the people for the extended duration of the power cuts and to address the reasons behind it and the government’s plans for the rest of the summer. Here are the main takeaways from the presser:

  • Yesterday’s extended cuts came as a result of a gas field in a “neighboring country” being offline for a 12-hour period, Madbouly said, without specifying the country.
  • Power cuts to stop by the third week of July: There will no longer be any rolling blackouts by the third week of next month until the end of the summer to alleviate the effect on citizens amid soaring temperatures.
  • However, the power cuts will return after the end of the summer until the end of the year as previously announced.
  • The 3-hour power cuts will continue until the end of the week, before returning to two hours a day at the beginning of next week.
  • Gov’t to spend USD 1 bn on fuel imports for power plants: Madbouly also announced a USD 1 bn plan to import fuel for power plants till the end of the year, in addition to USD 180 mn to import 300 tons of mazut next week.
  • All shops will close by 10pm at the latest starting next month, with the exception of supermarkets and pharmacies — which will be allowed to stay open until 1:00 AM.

On a related note- Abu Qir Fertilizers halts production due to gas supply cuts: High temperatures, increasing electricity consumption prices and cuts to the regional gas supply have led Abu Qir Fertilizers to cease natural gas supplies to its plants “until improvement in the operating conditions of the network,” the company said in an EGX disclosure (pdf). Abu Qir operates three plants, all of which have halted activities.

#2- Banque Misr and NBE increase credit card limits, lower FX markup fees: Banque Misr and the National Bank of Egypt (NBE) are raising credit card limits by 50% and lowering their FX markup fees to 5% from 10%, Banque Misr and Federation of Egyptian Banks Chairman Mohamed El Etreby told CNBC Arabia. The new limits bring Banque Misr’s spending cap on its highest category of cards to the FX equivalent of EGP 300k while it rises to the FX equivalent of EGP 240k at NBE.

ICYMI: The Commercial International Bank (CIB) announced yesterday that it would be loweringits FX markup fees and increasing spending limits, with the bank’s FX fee halving to 5% and monthly purchases abroad capped at the equivalent of EGP 100k-300k, up from EGP 75k-200k.

THE BIG STORY ABROAD

It’s a mixed bag on the front pages of the foreign press this afternoon: Several outlets are covering the soon-to-be-free Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who has agreed to plead guilty to one criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defense documents, writes Reuters. Assange’s plea is part of a settlement that will allow him to return to Australia, after 14 years in the UK, seven of which were spent living in the Ecuadorian embassy to avoid extradition charges to Sweden.

Disruption is the status quo for supply chains: With Yemen’s Houthis still attacking Red Sea vessels, rocketing freight transport prices, drought in the Panama Canal and strike threats from workers, disruption appears to be the norm for global supply chains, writes the NYT, with the effects likely to hit inflation rates and election campaigns.

Microsoft faces antitrust violation: Microsoft is under the Financial Times’ microscope, after the world’s most valuable company was charged with anti-competitive behavior by the European Commission on Tuesday, for giving its Teams app “undue advantage” by bundling the app with its Office suite.

** CATCH UP QUICK on the top stories from today’s EnterpriseAM:

☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- The heatwave continues tomorrow with a high of 39°C and a low of 25°C in Cairo, according to our favorite weather app.

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