Good morning, wonderful people. We’re reading the coffee grinds at the bottom of our cup to get us started this morning.

Egypt is moving from a “raise all the debt” stance to one of “pay it down to a sensible level.” That’s the key message the Madbouly government is delivering to the business community, foreign investors, and the public alike heading into the final days of 2025.

Debt messaging in overdrive: Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, Finance Minister Ahmed Kouchouk, and CBE Governor Hassan Abdalla sat down yesterday to brief President Abdel Fattah El Sisi on the state of the economy and public finances. The briefing came just days after Madbouly released a lengthy op-ed defending the government’s debt management record and promising “exceptional solutions” to ease fiscal pressures “in the coming days.”

Officials at all levels overuse the phrases “within the coming hours” and “in the coming days,” but still: Cabinet is signposting a policy shift. Madbouly set a target of bringing the ratio of external debt-to-GDP down to 40% by the end of the current fiscal year in June 2026 from 44% today — a level Madbouly was at pains to note falls within the internationally accepted “safe range” of 40-45%.

The messaging push is laying the groundwork for 2026: With parliamentary elections wrapping on 10 January just in time for the end of the current House’s five-year term, the Economic Group is staking out its policy framework for the year ahead.

Madbouly’s op-ed was unusually candid: He took direct aim at the “roads and bridges” critique — the narrative that infrastructure megaprojects drove the debt buildup at the expense of social spending — arguing it creates a “false confrontation” between physical investment and human development. The real question, he wrote, isn’t the size of the debt or the buildout of public infrastructure, but how debt gets managed and whether it crowds out social spending or supports growth. Watch this space.

Watch this space

CAPITAL MARKETS — Trading on the EGX could be extended by an additional hour with an earlier start and later close, according to a statement from the bourse seen by EnterpriseAM. The proposed 9:30am start and 3pm finish — instead of the current 10am-2:30pm window — could increase trading volumes, deepen liquidity, and align the local bourse more closely with regional peers, according to the statement.

Extending trading hours could help lift trading volumes, but the move would not, on its own, bring in fresh liquidity, CI Capital Head of Research Monsef Morsy told us. “More IPOs, different listings across different sectors, a better representation of the sectors within the real economy being represented on the market is definitely one thing to also improve overall liquidity and eventually increase foreign participation,” he added.

CUSTOMS — Coming up on the 12-month mark, the Egyptian Customs Authority is reviewing its policy on personal mobile-phone imports, a senior government official told EnterpriseAM. Lest you think the state is going to drop the measure: We don’t expect significant changes to the policy, which grants Egyptians the right to bring in one handset free of customs and taxes (equivalent to 37.5% of the customs value of the device) every three years.

Note that we said “Egyptians”: Foreign residents, including investors and senior executives, aren’t allowed a new device every three years. The rule as it stands is that foreign residents get one customs-free phone activated with an Egyptian SIM as a one off.

The government argues that resident foreigners and citizens are still treated the same, our source says, explaining that the three-year exemption for citizens was introduced specifically with Egyptians working abroad in mind.

Data point

USD 12 bn — the total value of Egyptian investments in Africa, President Abdel Fattah El Sisi said. Total annual trade between Egypt and the wider continent stands at some USD 10 bn, according to the president.

That’s a lot of zeroes, but in the wider scheme of things, we have plenty of room to grow. By comparison, South Africa leads the continent with USD 33 bn of total investments in Africa, while the Netherlands tops the list globally with USD 109 bn, according to UN Trade and Development.

Why? Egyptian businesses lack the banking rails to travel south. Unlike South African firms, whose national banks expanded across the continent to support client investments, Egyptian investors face a financing vacuum: Local banks rarely fund capex outside the country and state-backed risk insurance is virtually nonexistent. Consequently, even willing investors are forced to self-fund projects in volatile markets, often deciding that the risk-reward ratio is far worse than the safer, familiar yields found in the Gulf or the domestic treasury market.

Happening this week

TODAY — The Egyptian national team will face Zimbabwe in their opening match of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, marking the start of Egypt’s Group B campaign. Football fans will be closely watching the Pharaohs’ performance, with supporters looking to see if the team has what it takes this year to break its 15-year medal drought in the tourney.

THURSDAY — Results from the latest set of runoffs in elections for the House of Representatives are due out on 25 December. The National Elections Authority is aiming to wrap the full election cycle by 10 January 2026 ahead of the expiry of the current parliament’s term at month’s end.

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PSA-

WEATHER- Cairo could be in for a light drizzle today as the Egyptian Meteorological Authority forecasts low clouds across the capital. Expect a high of 22°C and a low of 11°C, according to our favorite weather app.

The big story abroad

Oil prices ticked up in Asia this morning after US forces tried to tighten their blockade of oil tankers coming into and out of Venezuela. The US coast guard is reportedly pursuing in international waters a tanker that was heading into Venezuela. The development comes barely two days after it raided a Panama-flagged ship and two weeks after it seized a third.

It’s otherwise a particularly quiet morning in the global business press — markets seem already to be sliding into the Christmas week news slowdown. That has the business pages serving up year-end fare including:

We’re not sure 2025 is going to give up the ghost quite so easily, but … we’ll take it.

*** It’s Blackboard day: We have our weekly look at the business of education in Egypt, from pre-K through the highest reaches of higher ed.

In today’s issue: If 2024 was the year of surviving all sorts of headwinds, 2025 was the year of structural change, with everything from overseas expansions and domestic shake-ups.

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