Egypt, Russia discuss simplifying trade procedures and advancing a bilateral free trade agreement

Good morning, wonderful people. A nearly final draft of the agenda is live for our upcoming EnterpriseAM Egypt Forum. We’ll be discussing what AI means for your company, your team, the economy, and your family. Some of the nation’s most senior business leaders will join us on stage to help us all think through this AI moment we’re all living through.

Let’s start with hedge funds. Our first framework for hedge funds has been cleared, and the FRA’s rules are flexible: each fund sets its own leverage, concentration, and liquidity limits. The FRA signs off on one prospectus at a time, giving it space to feel its way into an asset class it hasn’t handled before. CI Capital is already building what would be the country’s first equity hedge fund, and whether there’s enough market appetite is something we’re keeping a close eye on.

Egypt’s truck yards are getting a digital upgrade. A new EGP 1 bn digital yard at Ain Sokhna is already integrating with Nafeza, which means truckers can only request entry passes for cargo that’s already cleared. That means fewer wasted trips and faster turnaround. If the gains hold, this could be a model for replication across the country.

Egypt’s upstream dealmaking is picking up. BP is drilling and selling at the same time, and the wells are a clear tell for what assets it plans to keep. Energean is planning to pick up what BP is offloading, and it has four weeks to turn its indicative offer into a binding bid. And in a separate corner of the Western Desert, Genel has outbid DNO to win back Capricorn’s board recommendation.

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We’re happy to welcome Ahmed Mohsen as a guest speaker at the 2026 EnterpriseAM Egypt Forum — the AI edition.

Ahmed Mohsen is the co-founder and CTO of MNT-Halan, one of the fastest-growing fintech platforms in the Middle East and Africa, serving over 8 mn customers across Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey, and the UAE. He leads the company’s technology strategy and architected Neuron, MNT-Halan’s proprietary core banking system, overseeing a team of more than 90 engineers building the company’s digital infrastructure. A serial entrepreneur with deep roots in cybersecurity, Mohsen also co-founded SecureMisr, one of Egypt’s pioneering cybersecurity firms, acquired by Cysiv in 2020.

Join us on 5 October in Cairo. Attendance is by invitation only, and we’ve reached full capacity.

Request your invitation here to join the waitlist.

Fast-tracking the paper trail

Egypt and Russia are in talks to simplify bilateral trade procedures and advance a free trade agreement, Russia’s Industry and Trade Ministry said in a statement. Discussions also covered introducing electronic document management for cross-border transactions and developing new logistics routes.

Russia’s Deputy Industry and Trade Minister Roman Chekushov says the first Russian resident companies have been lined up to set up shop at the Russian Industrial Zone (RIZ) — a dedicated Russian manufacturing plot inside Egypt’s Suez Canal Economic Zone — although none were publicly named. Chekushov also laid out the site’s priority sectors, including construction materials, insulation, powder coatings, electrical equipment (transformers and panel gear), climate control systems, machine tools, medical and pharma products, and agricultural machinery. Russian exports to Egypt hit USD 5.9 bn between January and July, up 15.6% y-o-y, according to the statement.

IN CONTEXT- As we’ve previously reported, the RIZ could draw USD 5 bn in investment by 2028, with some 30 Russian firms scoping it out and construction set to kick off this year under a 49-year tax and customs incentive package. The original intergovernmental agreement for a RIZ dates back to 2018, initially planned for East Port Said before shifting to Ain Sokhna.

Powering the rebuild

Egypt signed an MoU with the Libya Reconstruction and Development Fund to collaborate on electricity and renewable energy, the fund said in a statement. The agreement covers grid development and capacity upgrades, renewable energy project implementation, and technical integration to support Libya’s urban expansion and reconstruction. It was signed during Electricity Minister Mahmoud Esmat’s visit to Benghazi, where he met with the fund’s Director General Belqasem Haftar.

IN CONTEXT- Egypt and Libya are deepening their ties in energy and construction. Talks resumed in January on scaling the electricity interconnection from a capacity of 150 MW to 2 GW, a link needed to unlock bns of USD in Egyptian-led reconstruction work in Benghazi and Derna, where projects have been stalled by a fragmented grid. A cascading blackout knocked 1.35 GW offline in July, triggering 70 MW of emergency exports. Export capacity has since risen 43% to 100 MW. Meanwhile, Egyptian contractors, such as Arab Contractors and Orascom Construction, are scaling into Libya’s estimated USD 200 bn reconstruction market. This MoU and the Tobruk-Alexandria oil pipeline’s renewables track are expanding the play from construction into energy infrastructure.

Happening today

An extraordinary general assembly of Misr Life Ins. votes today on the share split that prepares the state-owned insurer for its EGX debut. The vote would cut the nominal value of the company’s share to EGP 1 from EGP 10, leaving its issued capital unchanged, Mubasher reports, citing an EGX disclosure filed with the bourse yesterday. The outcome is all but certain, given that Misr Ins. Holding Company, itself wholly owned by the Sovereign Fund of Egypt, holds 100% of the shares being voted. The company is temporarily listed on the main market but not yet trading.

REFRESHER- Misr Life Ins.’s board approved the 10-for-1 split last week, which would take the register to 5 bn shares from 500 mn while holding issued capital at EGP 5 bn, half the EGP 10 bn authorized ceiling set by the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) in February. The split precedes a planned sale of up to 20% of the company on the EGX, with EFG Hermes mandated as sole global coordinator and bookrunner. Investment Minister Mohamed Farid said in July that the IPO was on track to close by year-end. The fair value study was due by end-September, with FRA sign-off up next before the government decides on the final stake size and timetable.

Why it matters: Misr Life shares the same 4Q window with Banque du Caire, now slated for November with 30-40% on offer. That puts two of the biggest names left in this leg of the state privatization program on the market within weeks of each other.

The Egyptian government locked in enough LNG and crude to carry the country through peak demand this summer, and the real question now is who pays for it and for the rebuild ahead.

PowerTrip, our new four-part signature series, follows the money behind an energy sector that went from exporting gas to importing it in just five years.

Over the four issues this autumn, we’ll look at how the lights stayed on and what that cost, who will own the next generation of power, how fast renewables can really scale, and whether Egypt’s claim to be the region’s energy hub still holds.

Issue I lands Wednesday, 30 September, and looks at how Egypt avoided rationing this summer, how the country went from gas exporter to importer in a decade, and what keeping the lights on actually cost us.

Coming straight to your inbox — Wednesday, 30 September.

PSA-

WEATHER- We are back to nicer summer weather in Cairo today, with a high of 32°C and a low of 22°C, according to our favorite weather app.

It’s even nicer in Alexandria, with a high of 29°C and a low of 21°C.

The big story abroad

A security development has cropped up on an unexpected front. UK authorities arrested five men suspected of planning a “major incident” near RAF Fairford, a Gloucestershire base used by the US Air Force in its strikes against Iran. US President Donald Trump said Washington collaborated with the UK to avert this attack on the base, which Iran’s Revolutionary Guard declared a legitimate target last July.

AI in the hot seat: Australian senators have called the CEOs of OpenAI and Anthropic to answer questions at an upcoming AI inquiry, triggered by the recent hack of the country’s health database by an autonomous OpenAI agent. Meanwhile, OpenAI admitted its AI models accessed public data from US government websites such as those of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Census Bureau.

Safety is one thing — cost, another: Surging IT costs are driving US corporates toward “open” AI models they can customize and run in-house, instead of paying for premium versions of ChatGPT and Claude. Executives mentioned “open weight” or “open source” AI models six times as often in earnings calls and investor conferences in August and September compared with the same period last year, according to research platform AlphaSense.

*** 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: We follow the EUR 170 mn KfW has committed to Egypt’s technical education, as the first German-backed “Centres of Competence” get ready to open.