Morning all, and welcome to a brand new month. We kick off the second month of the year with equal doses of caution and optimism. In today’s issue, we’ve got an exclusive that the Finance Ministry is mulling pressing pause on its plan to issue international bonds due to the recent uptick in global market volatility, while hot money inflows continue to rise.

This morning’s issue also sees our annual readers’ poll officially brought out of retirement and rebadged as our annual EnterpriseAM Executive Sentiment Survey. Despite headwings, some 94% of you tell us that you see business conditions improving and you don’t seem too bothered about the negative impacts of AI or the global trade war either.

Also in today’s issue is news that record tax gains were outpaced by debt interest increases in 1H 2025-26, a new EGX30 line-up, the first title insurance license approval, the expansion of the state’s subsidized loan program for industry, and more.

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LOGISTICS — The US wants American companies to invest in Egyptian ports, but geopolitics, not economics, seems to be driving the push. Once again, talk of US investment in Egypt’s maritime infrastructure has been filtering through embassy and government statements, with US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau discussing the topic with Industry Minister Kamel El Wazir during his visit to Egypt last week, according to a ministry statement.

The reason? Washington’s efforts to challenge China’s presence in global waterways, in our view. Landau’s comments — which follow a delegation of US companies led by Ambassador Herro Mustafa Garg in September to “explore” port investments and a joint briefing in April to showcase the sector to investors — come amid Trump administration pressure on ports and waterways across the globe where China has a presence. The US alleges that China’s foothold in maritime logistics erodes the neutrality of the nations hosting the projects, gives China extensive intelligence on US logistics and naval movement, and grants it the ability to leverage its assets to harm US interests, especially during a war.

Securing US port investments may be Egypt’s best play to avoid a more punitive approach from the US, as seen in Panama, where the Trump administration threatened to occupy the waterway and aggressively pushed for the takeover of Chinese-linked assets by groups including Blackrock. Washington has so far pushed Panama’s supreme court to rule that concessions on the Panama Canal held by Chinese-linked firms were unconstitutional and exit China’s Belt and Road Initiative. A similar approach to Egypt would endanger the huge amounts of Chinese investments around the Suez Canal and the many more bns planned.

TAX — The Finance Ministry is finalizing a tiered classification system for corporate taxpayers to extend tailored service packages, a senior government official tells EnterpriseAM. Companies will be grouped into platinum, gold, and silver categories based on a yet-to-be-confirmed set of criteria, but chief among them is compliance, our source tells us.

What we know so far: The platinum tier will grant eligible companies 30 expedited services, including a fast-track VAT refund processed within a maximum of five working days instead of the current 22 days. Gold and silver tiers will grant scaled-down versions of these services based on governance rules currently being discussed and drafted.

Why it matters: The classification system will operate alongside recent tax facilitation packages to improve collection efficiency and streamline administrative hurdles, our source says, supporting the state’s target of raising tax revenues by 1-2% of GDP annually by 2030.

IPO watch

Gourmet Egypt has priced its IPO at the top end of its range at EGP 6.90 per share, wrapping up its bookbuilding process that saw its private tranche oversubscribed 12.2x, according to an announcement (pdf). The offer price gives the premium grocer a market cap of EGP 2.76 bn.

The subscription window for institutional investors closed on Thursday, while retail investors still have until Wednesday. We can expect trading to start “on or around Monday, 9 February.”

Gourmet listed on the EGX last month, under the ticker GOUR.CA.

“This level of demand reflects Gourmet’s solid market position, its commitment to quality, and its ability to meet the needs of premium, quality-conscious consumers,” Gourmet Chairman Michael Wright said.

Why it matters: A good IPO would prove the EGX is a real alternative to strategic sales for PE outfits facing pressure to return liquidity to their limited partners.

ADDING TO THE IPO PIPELINE- Tatweer Misr to IPO next year? Real estate developer Tatweer Misr aims to bolster its financial and operational position leading up to a listing on the EGX or the entry of a strategic investor by 2027 as part of a five-year plan, CEO Ahmed Shalaby told Asharq Business.

Expansion plans: The developer is currently in advanced negotiations over a piece of land in Oman, Shalaby said, adding that the company is also looking to acquire more plots locally.

Project update

The UK-based Polar Hydro hiked the price tag for its plannedwaste-to-energy project in Giza to USD 4.2 bn under an MoU inked to implement the project, according to an Environment Ministry statement. The project to rehabilitate the old Shabramant dump, process at least 5k tons of waste per day, and convert accumulated waste into biofuels, fertilizers, and other export-oriented products under a private freezone model first came to our attention in December with a USD 2.5 bn investment ticket.

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News triggers

It’s the first week of February — here are the key news triggers to keep your eyes on this month:

  • Non-oil private sector activity to continue in the green for the third straightmonth?The private sector is eagerly awaiting S&P Global’s Purchasing Managers’ Index report for January on Tuesday, after the index pushed into the green for the last two months — a feat achieved only twice since November 2020.
  • The business community and policymakers will have their eyes on January’s inflation figures — due on 10 February — for early clues on how the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) will act at its monetary policy meeting just two days later. The country’s last monthly reading showed annual headline urban inflation unchanged at 12.3% despite food and beverages price increases, emboldening forecasts that inflation is set to continue making decent progress toward the CBE’s target of 7% (±2%) by the end of 2026.
  • Will the CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee kick off 2026 with another interest rate cut? The central bank’s committee in charge of monetary policy will meet on 12 February to decide on the pace of the interest rate cycle, after cutting rates by 100 bps at its last meeting. The year ahead should see the central bank put its rate-cutting cycle up a gear, Al Ahly Pharos’ Hany Genena has previously told EnterpriseAM, expecting another 800 bps worth of cuts to come to bring down real interest rates to 1-2%.

Morning must read

The greenback’s tough start to the year “if sustained, would boost the near-term economic outlook for Egypt,” Capital Economics argues in a report assessing the impact of depreciating USD on the region. Egypt “stands out as a key beneficiary [in the region] of a weaker USD,” argues the research firm, pointing to the EGP’s 9% appreciation against the USD since May and its knock-on impact on import price inflation — which in turn provides breathing room for interest rate cuts.

A weaker USD also means more manageable public debt repayments, 40% of which are denominated in FX, with the USD playing an oversized role in this, the firm notes. “Alongside a sizable primary budget surplus, declining local currency bond yields, and strong nominal GDP, this will help to sustain the public debt ratio on its downward path,” the agency adds.

Data point

EGP 15.7 tn — that’s the total value of securities traded in the local market last year, up from EGP 2.3 tn in 2024, according to a statement from the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA). Treasury bills and bonds accounted for the lion’s share at EGP 13.1 tn, while stocks traded on the EGX totaled EGP 2.4 tn.

The year also saw the markets welcome 299k new investors, which FRA chief Mohamed Farid said reflected “the growing confidence of investors in the market as a result of reform and regulatory policies.”

PSA-

WEATHER- The mercury is rising in Cairo today, with a welcome high of 26°C and a low of 16°C, according to our favorite weather app.

It’s also getting hotter in Alexandria, with a high of 26°C and a low of 15°C.

The big story abroad

News of BTC’s steep price drop has caught the attention of the global press, as a wider selloff afflicted several major cryptocurrencies. Yesterday, BTC fell to its lowest level since April 2025, plunging below USD 80k, attributed to a failure to attract buying interest despite conditions that historically would have been supportive, namely the backsliding greenback. The dip wiped out some USD 111 bn off the crypto market’s total value in a single 24 hour period, according to data by CoinGecko.

AND- What could Trump’s Fed chair nomination mean for the central bank? The Federal Reserve may be looking at a “regime change” once US President Donald Trump’s pick for the chief position, former Fed governor and Wall Street veteran Kevin Warsh, replaces current Fed chair Jay Powell. Warsh has been critical of the Fed for gradually expanding its role beyond its original mandate. Markets are also expecting him to balk at the aggressive rate cuts called for by Trump.

Warsh is considered by some to be a “pragmatist” whose historical disposition against inflation is unlikely to result in unwarranted cuts that allow overheating of the economy, Navy Federal Credit Union chief economist Heather Long told Reuters. That said, more clarity on his future policy decisionmaking is still needed. Warsh’s nomination is yet to be approved by the Senate.

ALSO WORTH READING- Investors are scrambling to reprice loans to software firms as the AI boom threatens digital products with obsolescence. Despite widespread optimism in debt markets, a loan sell off has hit software players, including Cloudera, which saw pricing on one of its loans drop by USD 0.07 last week. The stakes are especially high in light of software accounting for 12% of the credits in the Bloomberg US Leveraged Loan Index.

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