Egypt on track to clear outstanding arrears to IOCs by end of June

Good morning, friends. We have a ton of companies coverage for you this morning, including news of an accelerated book build that saw institutional investors snap up shares of fintech darling Valu, word that Edita has lined up funding to grow its production capacity as it looks to deliver EGP 26 bn in sales this year, and Fawry targeting the gig economy with a new micro ins. product.

^^ We have all of this and more in this morning’s issue, below.

Hey, Enterprise? Why do you write “ins.” and not the word that makes clear someone bought a policy covering them against risk? It’s annoying, we know. But welcome to the world of email deliverability algorithms, wherein a bot decides whether we hit your inbox or not. The full version of the word “ins.” almost invariably sends us to a bad folder, not to your inbox.

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PSA-

It’s almost time for us to move our clocks forward 60 minutes to get an extra hour of daylight (or lose an hour of sleep, depending on how you look at it) — daylight saving time takes effect at midnight next Friday. While the cabinet has yet to make an official announcement, by law we welcome daylight saving time on the last Friday of April. We turn our clocks back an hour on the last Thursday of October.

We’re sure the Madbouly government is happy to welcome an extra hour of daylight, as the nation currently faces an inflated energy bill thanks to rising energy prices on the back of the ongoing regional war. The rest of us? Not so much: The time change messes with our biological clocks.

WEATHER- It’s another spring day in Cairo, with a sunny morning and cool evening — the capital is looking at a high of 26°C and a low of 14°C, according to our favorite weather app.

It’s a little cooler for our friends in Alexandria, which is in for a high of 24°C and a low of 13°C.

Happening today

The House of Representatives is set for a high-stakes session today to debate amendments to the Competition Law and to hear directly from Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly. The legislation would, if passed, give the Egyptian Competition Authority to hand down financial penalties directly, without the need to launch traditional criminal proceedings.

Mergers will also be under the microscope. The bill introduces a mandatory pre-merger notification and review system for what policymakers call “economic concentrations.”

So who needs clearance? Transactions would be subject to review if the combined in-Egypt annual turnover or assets of the involved parties exceed EGP 2.5 bn (provided that at least two of the parties to a transaction have assets or turnover north of EGP 500 mn). A company with global revenues of more than EGP 15 bn going after a local target with more than EGP 500 mn on the top line would also need clearance.

More details emerge on gov’t taxation plans

The Finance Ministry is putting together a second package of nearly 30 tax amendments it thinks will see it collect an additional EGP 300 bn in revenue without introducing new taxes. The package — set to roll out in June — targets holding companies, state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and foreign businesses, a government official tells EnterpriseAM.

What are we expecting? A key change to look for is how the government taxes holding companies selling assets, including stocks or properties. Instead of taxing the parent company, “taxes would be collected from subsidiaries and then the collected amount would be deducted when accounting for the holding companies,” our source tells us. The package also decouples local tax audits from international transfer pricing audits, which will “ensure local activity audits do not have to wait for international transfer pricing files.”

The government will also exempt foreign financing directed toward national projects from loan return taxes, while eyeing more taxes from the net income of SOEs, the source added.

Why it matters: The Finance Ministry aims to collect a record EGP 3.5 tn in tax revenues in FY 2026/27, and the package is a key part of its strategy. The package alone is projected to contribute 1.2% of GDP in additional revenue, paving the way for EGP 5.5 tn in annual receipts by 2030.

REMEMBER- We’ve been following the Finance Ministry’s preparations of a sweeping package of 49 tax and customs reforms that target boosting both foreign direct investment and portfolio inflows. The goal is to raise the tax-to-GDP ratio to 15-16%, bringing Egypt in line with middle-income peer averages from its current position of 12.5%.

Almost time to cease paying the piper

The government only has USD 900 mn left to settle with International Oil Companies (IOCs), and it intends to pay up in full by the end of June. The gov’t paid out USD 300 mn to IOCs last week, according to a report. It intends to close the chapter on arrears payment by the end of 1H in a bid to gain back trust and investments in the petroleum sector, a government official tells us. It’s also developing a new framework to “prevent the reaccumulation of dues to foreign partners,” they added.

Efforts look like they’re already paying off. IOCs are committing to ramp up production and expand exploration activity, including Shell’s plans to raise its gas production capacity by 160 mmcf/d by the end of this year, according to a separate report.

But there is a price to pay: “To honor our commitments to our partners, we have to make sure that we reduce the gap between the price of the commodities that we’re providing, in terms of petroleum goods, and the cost [of delivering] those goods, which is why there’s been a constant adjustment in pricing,” Oil Minister Karim Badawi previously said at an Amcham gathering attended by EnterpriseAM.

Looking forward: The government is studying a return to the automatic fuel pricing mechanism once global prices stabilize, linking domestic retail prices of certain petroleum products to international benchmarks, our source tells us. The government wants to curb inflation and have better control over the import bill. On its way to gradually phase-out of fuel subsidies, it recently applied a cost-recovery mechanism that helped slash fuel subsidy allocations to EGP 16.5 bn, down from EGP 75 bn in the current budget.

Local contractors can breathe easy

The government is giving companies working on public contracts six months of wiggle room as the conflict in the Gulf weighs on supplies and finances, according to a document seen by EnterpriseAM. The relief measure covers all ongoing contracts as of 1 March, including projects currently in the tendering or technical evaluation stages.

Why this matters: Local contractors are being given room to navigate their cashflow constraints without the threat of government litigation or technical defaults amid disrupted supply chains, sources at the Egyptian Federation for Construction and Building Contractors tell us. The government is also giving itself a buffer to pay its own dues, after its decision to rationalize public spending in late February, we’re told.

We’ve seen this before: The cabinet gave similar extensions for the better part of four years starting in 2020, when the local market was dealing with fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine. Committees will now review extension requests case-by-case to ensure that the six-month buffer accounts for specific delays in shipping and raw material availability.

Data point

USD 890 per ton — that’s the price local firms charged for six to seven shipments of exported fertilizers last Friday. Exporters charged significantly higher prices compared to the recent global average of USD 835 and nearly double the pre-crisis price of USD 484.

Egyptian fertilizer producers are leveraging the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to ramp up exports to India at record-high prices, Agritrade CEO Ahmed Hegras to Al Arabiya. The move comes as India grapples with a severe energy supply deficit after major Gulf exporters — including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE — suspended shipments due to the Hormuz blockade. This has positioned Egypt as the region’s most critical alternative supplier, with the potential to tap into some USD 1.6 bn in unutilized export capacity.

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The big story abroad

US-Iran talks are reportedly on track for later this week in Islamabad. Tehran will reportedly dispatch a negotiating team today, though it remains unclear who will lead it. US President Donald Trump said the two-week ceasefire will expire on Wednesday evening Washington time and that an extension is unlikely.

Meet Apple’s new CEO: After much speculation about who would lead the iPhone maker after CEO Tim Cook steps down, Apple’s board of directors has named John Ternus, the current senior vice president of hardware engineering, to lead the tech giant starting in September. Cook will become executive chairman of the board.

In other tech news: Amazon and Anthropic will spend over USD 100 bn on AI infrastructure over the next 10 years, as per a new agreement to secure up to 5 GW of new capacity to train and run Claude — the hottest AI application at the moment.

AND- Warsh faces the Senate. The Senate confirmation hearing for Fed Chair nominee Kevin Warsh is scheduled for today, marking the first major test for the Trump nominee. We will be closely watching what he says about reshaping monetary policy amid a shifting global economy. Warsh is expected to navigate a narrow path between the White House’s push for lower rates and Wall Street’s fears regarding Federal Reserve independence.

What to expect: Warsh is expected to tell senators that the Fed’s independence is not “particularly threatened when elected officials… state their views on interest rates,” according to remarks seen by the Financial Times. He will also emphasize the importance of the Fed’s independence in setting rates to keep inflation in check.

*** It’s Going Green day — your weekly briefing of all things green in Egypt: EnterpriseAM’s green economy vertical focuses each Tuesday on the business of renewable energy and sustainable practices in Egypt, everything from solar and wind energy through to water, waste management, sustainable building practices and how you can make your business greener, whatever the sector.

In today’s issue: We take a deep dive into the groundwork for a nationwide green labeling system for plastics.