Gov’t to drop 5% phone fee for zone factories in exchange for new investment

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WHAT WE’RE TRACKING TODAY

Egypt’s PMI holds at 47.2 in October, but output and new orders fall at their fastest pace in four months

Good morning, lovely people, and happy almost-weekend. In today’s issue, we have a fee coming off phones built in the industrial zones, October’s EGX sell-off behind us, and a governor who wants the EGP to travel.

First up, a phone built in one of Egypt’s investment zones and sold a few kilometers away has been cleared as an import, 5% development fee and all. The government is stopping that for zone factories selling at home — and it wants something back from the makers: new investment and more capacity, three officials tell us.

The bourse’s monthly report is out, and the benchmark closed October down 4.43% at 49.6k points, its first back-to-back monthly losses this year. Small and mid caps took it about twice as hard, with the EGX70 down 9.91%. The story below covers the split and what the month says about the mood heading into November.

Governor Hassan Abdalla wants our EGP to be welcome in a bank abroad. He calls it “legally convertible” and gives it five years; our explainer is on what has to change here first — and why that is a harder question than the headline suggests.

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These are some of the questions readers and listeners have sent us over the years, so on an upcoming episode of Making It, Patrick and the team will answer them along with anything else you’re curious about: whether it’s about the business, our coverage, how the newsroom is run, or why we do things the way we do.

Have a question for us? Record it as a voice memo (30-45 seconds), tell us your name at the top, and send it to [email protected] by Saturday, 7 November. We’ll also take written questions, but since we’re an audio show, we’d love to play yours in your own voice.

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Still no bounce

The country’s non-oil private sector stayed in contraction in October, with output and new orders falling at their fastest in four months. The S&P Global Egypt PMI held at 47.2, unchanged from September — a 10th month below the 50.0 no-change mark and below the survey’s long-run average of 48.2 — while employment returned to decline and business confidence slipped to a seven-month low, according to a survey (pdf).

What held the headline up was supply-side noise rather than demand. Delivery times lengthened to the greatest degree since June and firms built buffer stocks for the first time in four months — both of which add to the index but “reflected supply disruption and inflation concerns rather than stronger demand,” S&P Global Market Intelligence Principal Economist David Owen said. Firms cut purchases of inputs sharply as delays built up on maritime disruption, material shortages, and slower customs procedures.

Cost pressures intensified: Input inflation hit a five-month high as firms pointed to higher import, energy, and shipping costs and a weaker exchange rate, and selling prices rose at the fastest pace since June — which Owen reads as a sign the recent easing in official inflation may prove short-lived. The central bank’s 100 bps hike last week, its first since March 2024, came after the survey closed, but the pressure it targets is already in the data, economist Iten El Marghoushy tells EnterpriseAM. She added that the move “was justified as firms continued to raise selling prices despite weak demand,” and she expects inflationary pressure to persist through 1H 2027, with room for cuts to resume in 2H 2027 if tensions ease and energy prices stabilize.

Adeer checks in

Sumou Holding’s Adeer International is weighing three to five hotel projects worth USD 250-300 mn in Egypt through end-2027, Adeer CEO Bassel El Serafy told Al Arabiya. The first two are already moving: Adeer is in advanced talks on a hotel inside Sumou Boulevard, a mixed-use development in Mostakbal City and Sumou’s largest project in Egypt, and expects to wrap up arrangements for a second hotel in 1Q 2027. The two hotels will add 400-500 hotel keys and a similar number of residential units, and a third hotel is in the works within an East Cairo mixed-use scheme with Hassan Allam Properties. Adeer is also building partnerships with international hotel brands, including Hilton, El Serafy said.

ALSO- Sumou Boulevard’s 60-feddan site is on track to become an investment zone. Adeer secured preliminary approval from the General Authority for Investment and Freezones, which would grant operational and tax incentives to incoming corporate tenants, El Serafy said.

REMEMBER- Sumou Boulevard, which Adeer launched through a July 2025 joint venture with Paragon, carries a EGP 70 bn investment ticket and over EGP 100 bn in projected revenue, we reported in April. Sumou also said last year it plans to put SAR 2 bn (c. EGP 26 bn) into Egyptian real estate over five years, with a focus on mixed-use schemes with residential, hotel, office, and retail components.

PSA-

WEATHER- Cairo is taking a step back from yesterday’s warmth today, with a high of 28°C, and a low of 18°C, a couple of degrees off the high with the overnight low slipping a notch too, according to our favorite weather app.

It’s a cooler day in Alexandria too, with a high of 24°C and a low of 18°C.

And over the weekend, to see cooler weather in the capital (a high of 26°C on Friday, easing to 25°C on Saturday) and as low as 17°C for our friends on the Mediterranean.

The big story abroad

Wall Street rallied yesterday after Democrats won a sweeping midterm victory that gave them control of both the House and Senate, while expectations of an earlier end to the Iran War drove oil prices down. Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft each gained over 6%, as investors wager that the new Congress will push for cuts in AI investment. Energy stocks fell 4.7% and were heading for their steepest daily drop since 2025. Tesla, SpaceX, and data-center companies like CoreWeave declined, while housing stocks gained on lower Treasury yields and mining shares rose as metals prices climbed.

Bill Gates has accused the Trump administration of blocking efforts to manage AI risks, warning the technology could cause a pandemic far deadlier than Covid. Speaking at an FT summit, the Microsoft co-founder named AI-enabled bioweapons and cyberattacks as the biggest immediate threats. He said self-regulation will not work and urged Washington to consider safety benchmarks for AI models, lead a global effort to fix cyber vulnerabilities, and expand monitoring to catch AI-enabled infections early.

Google has widened its voluntary severance program to staff in several countries this year to contain rising costs as it pours money into AI. The company said it started extending the packages in June to some workers in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and Switzerland, though the number of workers who took them is unknown. Past offers did not include employees in Google Cloud or DeepMind, and the new round seems to exclude them as well. The expansion follows Microsoft’s move to offer buyouts to 60k staff as part of its own cost-cutting push.

Gov’t waives the 5% development fee for zone-based phone makers selling locally

The government will stop charging the 5% development fee on handsets that zone-based manufacturers sell into the domestic market, trading part of its fee revenue for new investment in local assembly, three government officials tell EnterpriseAM. The exemption covers factories operating in the economic and private investment zones, which were paying the fee on phones they released onto the local market, where zone output is cleared as an import.

The change lands on a narrow slice of the industry: The fee was in play for the zone-based factories selling into the local market; a device made inside the customs area is already exempt. Manufacturers outside those zones were not paying it on local sales, so the relief narrows the gap between zone-based assembly and the rest rather than cutting costs across the board.

And it comes with strings: The government wants commitments on new investment and higher capacity, and it lands on top of the mobile sector’s inclusion in the export-rebate program — electronics design, semiconductors, embedded systems, and mobile services were added to it in May for seven years — plus smoother export procedures and other support for selling into the domestic market.

The fee is the 5% Egypt charges on phones, their parts, and accessories under Law 147/1984, while exempting the components factories import for manufacturing and the finished locally made device. Zone-based production is paying it on local sales, as imports do. Waiving it gives up part of a fee the budget targets at about EGP 1.9 bn this fiscal year, the officials say; the government expects new investment, higher output, and exports to replace part of that through more industrial value added, foreign currency, and jobs.

Fifteen brands, 10 mn handsets

Fifteen global brands now make phones in Egyptian factories — Samsung, vivo, Infinix, and Sico among them — and output has reached about 10.5 mn handsets, covering much of local demand, a telecom-sector source tells EnterpriseAM. The government wants 14-15 mn devices this year, against about 10 mn in 2025 and roughly 3 mn in 2024, according to earlier statements by the ICT minister. Announced annual capacity is about 20 mn units on government data — above actual output, leaving room to grow as investment and export demand rise.

Who makes what

Manufacturing runs across Samsung’s plant in Beni Suef and Oppo’s in 10th of Ramadan, planned at USD 50 mn with 17 lines and a target of 500k devices a month. Vivo assembles locally in the 10th of Ramadan, Sico (Egypt’s own handset maker) builds for brands including Infinix, and Xiaomi products are assembled by Al Safy in 6th of October. HMD Global has assembled Nokia handsets in New Assiut since 2023. Silicon Valley for Electronic Industries’ factory in Sokhna’s Teda-Egypt industrial area makes wearables — smartwatches and Bluetooth earphones — and runs a production line for Infinix. Total investment in the industry stands at about USD 200 mn, MCIT says, with wide variation in scale and capacity between the players.

Exports are still early

Local makers have shipped limited volumes to Morocco and other North African markets, and export contracts have slowed as output stays short of local demand, the officials say. New investment and capacity are meant to change that without starving the home market. A weaker EGP cuts both ways, the telecom source says. They added that it raises the cost of imported components and has companies studying higher prices at home while making Egyptian-made devices cheaper to price in foreign currency.

The plan goes beyond handsets: Egypt is preparing to start producing its first fully locally made router, with a specialized company picked to supply Telecom Egypt with the volumes, the telecom source says, extending the localization drive into network gear and cutting reliance on imported devices. We looked at the local router industry back in October 2024, after the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (Itida) signed contracts with Telecom Egypt and three private companies in March that year to design and develop locally made high-speed internet routers.

IN CONTEXT- The incentives come to a market where locally made handsets have lost ground: sales are down about 20% this year as higher prices and weaker consumer spending cut demand, says Mohamed Talaat, who heads the telecoms and mobile division at the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce, even as imports of phone production inputs climbed 37.1% to about USD 500 mn in the first half on foreign trade data. Egypt is assembling more and importing more to do it, so whether the package pays for itself turns on local content, not on assembly lines.

EGX30 sheds 4.43% in October to post its first back-to-back monthly loss of 2026

The EGX30 closed October down 4.43% at 49.6k points, its second losing month in a row and the benchmark’s first back-to-back losses this year, according to the bourse’s monthly report (pdf). March, June, and September also closed in the red. The index opened the month at 51.9k, climbed as high as 54.1k, and bottomed at 47.9k — an 11.4% peak-to-trough swing inside four weeks, by our math. The only index on the board to finish green was the EGX T-Bonds, up 0.88% to 2.7k, and only the food, beverages, and tobacco sector held the line, finishing up 0.2%.

Further down the market, the losses ran about twice as deep. The EGX70 dropped 9.91% to 16.8k points, and the broader EGX100 lost 8.62% to 22.6k. Tamayuz, the SME gauge, fell 6.33% to 38.1k. The low-volatility EGX35-LV shed 8.32% to 5.8k, while the EGX33 Shariah index lost 5.57% to 5.9k. These are high-beta companies that are more exposed to retail trading and swings in investor sentiment than their EGX30 counterparts, Menthum co-founder and CEO Himanshu Shrimali tells EnterpriseAM.

ICYMI- The exchange suspended trading for 30 minutes on Sunday, 25 October after the EGX100 breached its circuit-breaker threshold, the first market-wide halt since October 2021. The EGX70 fell 11.07% in that session alone and the EGX100 8.88%, against 3.56% for the benchmark. The pressure had been building before the halt, with fund managers selling to unlock liquidity for the MNT-Halan and Banque du Caire offerings and the pipeline behind them.

“October was a confidence correction, not a fundamental one,” Okaz Asset Management’s Randa Hamed tells EnterpriseAM. The net selling came from institutions, mostly foreign, and landed on the blue chips, but the disorder was further down the market. “The panic was in the small- and mid-caps,” she says, where retail dominates trading. That showed in how urgently people sold and in how fast and how far prices moved in retail-heavy names, Hamed says, while the month’s data shows retail investors stayed in the market.

Shrimali is calmer about October — yet worried about what’s yet to follow — describing the pullback as a healthy pause for the market. He points out that the selloff was hardly unique to Egypt, with global pressures compounded at home by geopolitical tensions and currency strain. On the other hand, he’s more concerned about what comes next: “What happened in October is not as important or significant as compared to what is going to happen in the next couple of weeks.”

What would turn it around: Shrimali sees the EGP’s slide — 20% since March and 10% since September, by his numbers — working as a tailwind for equities in 6-12 months. On his read, a cheaper EGP lifts nominal prices and widens margins. The risk he’s watching sits outside Egypt: global money taking “a pause from the AI trade” or losing patience with fiscal deficits.

ZOOMING OUT- Shrimali’s point holds across the region: Abu Dhabi’s ADX fell 6% in October, its worst month since March, Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul shed roughly 5%, and Dubai’s DFM slipped 3.2%, putting the EGX30 squarely mid-pack in a GCC-wide selloff.

Selling without conviction

Total value traded came in at EGP 2.5 tn, up 5.9% from September, with all of the increase coming from the debt side. Bonds and bills traded EGP 2.3 tn, up 9.4% m-o-m, and took 91.6% of total market turnover. Listed stocks (including SMEs) managed EGP 211.0 bn, down 20.9% from September’s EGP 266.7 bn, and accounted for 8.4% of the total. Meanwhile, total volume traded fell 16.7% to 53.29 bn securities, with transactions dropping 20.9% to 4.82 mn.

Market cap followed prices down, falling 4.04% to EGP 3.9 tn and erasing some EGP 163.8 bn over the month, while the SME board lost 6.8% to EGP 3.4 bn. Paid-in capital moved the other way, rising 4.2% to EGP 627.7 bn as Export Development Bank of Egypt, Orascom Development Egypt, and Delta for Printing & Packaging all issued bonus shares into the decline. The market ended October on a trailing P/E of 17.36 and a dividend yield of 4.03%.

Hamed reads the drop in activity as constructive: a falling market on thin turnover means the selling never gathered much conviction, and it would have taken heavy volume on the way down to signal a real selloff. “First, turnover fell about 21% from September. This is a positive indicator,” she says. The same test runs in reverse: a rally without volume behind it is the one she would question, because it tends not to hold.

SOUND SMART- Trading intensity, or turnover divided by market cap, has run at almost 75% this year, against 20–30% for most of the past decade and roughly 35% in 2025, Shrimali says. In the US and India, that ratio leans on algo and options trading, but neither operates at size on the EGX, where freefloats are thin, so it’s retail carrying the market.

The worst-hit sectors

The selling reached almost every corner of the market, with 15 of the 16 sectoral indices closing red. Textiles and durables was the worst, shedding 14.5%, followed by industrial goods, services, and automobiles (-11.5%), travel and leisure (-10.0%), real estate (-9.4%), healthcare and pharma (-9.0%), and trade and distributors (-8.3%). Non-bank financial services fell 7.2%, followed by contracting and construction engineering (-5.9%), IT, media, and communication services (-5.8%), and education services (-5.7%). Banks, the exchange’s largest sector weight at 23.4% of market cap, fell 5.0%. The valuation gap is just as wide: banks closed the month on a trailing P/E of 5.05x, against 23.49x for healthcare and 47.84x for education, by the bourse’s sector table. Shrimali reads the banks as cheap against their returns — and education as too thin a sector for the multiple to say much.

The shallowest losses were in energy and support services as well as building materials, both dipping 0.9%, with shipping and transportation services down 2.3%.

Institutions sold, retail bought

Under all that, institutions and retail traded in opposite directions. Excluding block trades, institutions were net sellers of EGP 4.14 bn of listed stock and retail investors net buyers of the same amount. Retail accounted for 74.9% of open-market turnover against 25.1% for institutions, by our math. Egyptian retail did most of the buying, at a net EGP 4.03 bn.

And a lot of that buying likely came from retail’s most stretched investors. Almost half of the investors in Menthum’s community poll had borrowed through buy-now-pay-later providers, including Valu, to buy stocks, Shrimali notes. He says a large number of the retail army are “heavily leveraged,” paying interest of up to 50% to chase returns. That leaves them no spare capital to fund a recovery as the bills they borrowed against come due. That leaves the next leg to institutions, foreigners, or high-net-worth investors, none of them big players on the EGX today, he says.

Non-locals sold, again

Split by nationality, local investors made up 88.7% of value traded in listed stocks excluding block trades, with foreigners at 8.6% and regional investors at 2.7%. Foreigners were net sellers of EGP 2.3 bn over the month, and regional investors were net sellers of EGP 588.9 mn. “Concentrated foreign selling was almost all of it in banks, which is contrary to what was expected considering the IPO of Banque du Caire was expected to buoy the sector,” Hamed tells us.

The YTD picture points the same way: Local investors have taken 88.3% of value traded excluding block trades since January, foreigners 7.7%, and regional investors 4.0%, with foreigners net sellers of EGP 13.5 bn and regional investors net sellers of EGP 10.6 bn across the 10 months.

The brokerages league table

In October: Thndr topped the monthly brokerage league table (pdf) with a 17.4% market share, followed by Commercial International Brokerage Company (CIBC) at 15.9% and EFG Hermes’s combined brokerage arms at 14.3%.

YTD- Thndr leads the YTD rankings (pdf) with a 16.6% market share, followed by EFG Hermes’s combined arms at 12.9% and CIBC at 5.9%.

Egypt wants convertible and bankable EGP abroad in five years — here is what has to change

Egypt wants the EGP to be “legally convertible” outside the country, meaning it can be exchanged beyond our borders and held in bank accounts abroad, Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) Governor Hassan Abdalla said at Egypt Forum 2026 late last month (watch, runtime: 15:23). Abdalla thinks it’s doable within five years, but how fast Egypt gets there depends on how much the world needs to buy Egyptian goods and services, and how much investors trust the currency. Here’s what convertibility means in practice, and what would have to change.

If you take EGP 100 to Heathrow Airport, you can exchange it, but that’s not the case “in every part of London,” Al Ahly Pharos Head of Research Hany Genena tells EnterpriseAM. Only a handful of places will take it, the ones with clients willing to hold EGP, he says, and that’s the gap between currencies that are actively bought and sold and scarce currencies.

At the far end of that spectrum are the five “global reserve currencies” — the USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, and CNY, Genena says. They can be used anywhere to buy goods, services, and financial assets, the three things any currency is used for, he explains. Those five make up the basket behind the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDR), the Fund’s accounting currency. The SDR has no banknotes; it exists on the IMF’s books, he adds.

Economists split the idea into two related terms: “Convertibility refers to the ability to exchange a currency for other currencies and transfer funds under a predictable framework,” Islam Magdy, a senior economist and macro analyst, tells EnterpriseAM. Currency internationalization goes a step further into the “broader use of that currency in cross-border trade settlement, financial transactions, and potentially as a store of value outside its home economy,” Magdy explains. He reads the governor’s five-year ambition as “a policy objective, not as evidence that full convertibility or internationalization has already been achieved.”

SOUND SMART- Full convertibility has two halves. Current-account convertibility (goods and services) is the half the IMF polices: under Article VIII, a member may not restrict payments and transfers for current international transactions without the Fund’s approval. Capital-account convertibility, letting foreign money move in and out of local assets, is a separate step, and the Fund’s own rules let members keep controls on capital movements (Article VI, Section 3). China is the live example: convertible for current-account purposes and still restricted on capital, Genena says.

What makes a currency convertible?

First, the world has to want it: “A large part of the world deals with it,” Genena says, and the world deals with a currency for one reason: the issuing economy’s trade is large, exports above all. The bigger your export base, the more countries import from you and end up needing your currency, he adds.

Next, investors have to trust it: “Investors do not necessarily need a fixed exchange rate. They need confidence that the policy framework will remain predictable under pressure,” Magdy argues. A legal right to move money only counts, he says, if transfers “can be executed reliably in practice, including during periods of FX-market stress.” He points to Egypt’s 2022-2024 FX scarcity, and the parallel market that came with it, as the case in point.

Then there’s demand from investors: A foreign investor buying into the EGX, T-bills, or bonds has to convert into EGP first, because those assets are priced in EGP. Economists call this derived demand, Genena says. “The assets that people want are Egyptian assets, so they need to convert to EGP to buy those Egyptian assets,” he says. A big enough bill, bond, and equity market creates demand for the EGP on its own.

Why does the state want it?

A convertible currency also holds its value, which Genena calls “an alternative to gold.” What supports a currency’s international standing is that “its value does not decline over time,” he says, so getting there takes monetary discipline and low inflation. With enough global demand, every seller finds a buyer, Genena says, and a currency collapses when people doubt the monetary policy behind it and a seller finds no one on the other side.

It would also make borrowing cheaper: Lenders trust a currency they can trade easily the way they trust the reserve currencies above, so they don’t charge a large depreciation premium. A thinly traded EGP carries a depreciation premium, meaning every foreign investor prices in the chance of a currency price drop. Once that premium goes away, “I can borrow at a significantly cheaper cost in international markets,” Genena says.

It would also blunt Egypt’s dependence on hot money: Hot money isn’t necessarily a problem since it attracts inflows to domestic debt instruments, Magdy says. The risk is “structural dependence on these flows as a source of hard currency,” because “when an economy relies heavily on short-term foreign capital, a sudden reversal can put pressure on the exchange rate, reserves, and domestic financial conditions.” The goal is for these inflows to “complement more sustainable sources of FX earnings, including exports, productive FDI, and remittances, rather than substitute for them,” Magdy says.

Market depth matters too, Genena says. “When [USD 1-2 bn] leaves, it shakes the exchange rate by 5% or 6%,” while in a deeper interbank market the same flow does not move the price.

Don’t expect it to end Egypt’s need for the greenback, though. Neither convertibility nor internationalization would automatically reduce Egypt’s structural demand for USD, Magdy says. The country would still need foreign currency for imports, debt service, and other obligations, but wider EGP use could cut conversion costs and the need for a vehicle currency in some transactions, he adds. “The key distinction is between reducing the use of the USD as an intermediary and reducing the economy’s underlying need for foreign currency,” he says. The first is possible in selected transactions; the second depends on a stronger external balance and sustainable FX inflows.

Does Egypt have what it takes?

“It’s possible, but our economy must grow very aggressively,” Genena says. On exports, Egypt has to “run so fast” that volumes reach USD 100-150 bn. On markets, “we have to offer multiple companies on the stock exchange,” he adds. In FY 2025/26, Egypt’s non-oil exports grew to USD 37.3 bn, up 7.8% from USD 34.6 bn a year earlier, while oil exports rose to USD 6.6 bn. Egypt also recorded a net services surplus of USD 16.7 bn.

The capital markets side is further along: domestic debt already accommodates inflows “to a large extent, although there could still be limits,” Genena says, while equities have “ample room to increase.” The payoff is foreign investors bringing EGP to buy Egyptian goods, Suez Canal services, tourism, equities, and some bills and bonds, he adds. Partial progress toward convertibility is within reach, he says, while full convertibility “usually takes time, and it takes speed.”

The other test is whether the EGP can be held and traded abroad, the mechanism behind our lede’s “bank accounts abroad.” Magdy is careful with it: an offshore EGP market that arrives “before domestic FX-market credibility is firmly established” could “expose differences between the official exchange rate and market expectations, amplify capital outflows during periods of stress, and add pressure to FX reserves.” His concern is sequencing: he sees it as “a potential outcome of stronger domestic market institutions, not as a substitute for them.”

OUR TAKE- A convertible currency is one the world accepts for goods, services, and financial assets. Acceptance follows exports and deep capital markets. Holding it safely depends on whether investors can reliably exit, including when FX runs short. Egypt can get there, but it needs a large export size, higher demand for its exports, as well as predictable policies, low inflation, and a rise in confidence. The trade-off is the state’s ability to decide who gets hard currency and who waits: a currency anyone can hold and trade abroad can’t be rationed the way Egypt rationed USD in past shortages.

Egypt’s SMEs carry the private sector. Growth tests how they are run

A business can still be small when the management job gets complicated. Micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises made up 90% of Egypt’s private sector in 2024, generated 43% of GDP, and employed 75% of the workforce, Ahram Online reports.

Growth rewrites the job descriptions. The best engineer or salesperson becomes a first-time manager, responsible for a team they were never trained to lead. Their employers rarely fill that gap: just 5% of small firms offer formal staff training, compared with 19% of large firms, according to a World Bank survey.

The org chart is only the beginning. The owner takes on financial decisions that used to be simple, from managing working capital to funding the next stage of expansion. Supply and inventory decisions grow more complex as volumes rise, and winning customers means competing through digital channels against rivals with much larger marketing budgets.

AUC Onsi Sawiris School of Business Executive Education already works with smaller firms. SMEs account for 52% of participants and join the same open and custom programs as larger companies. The sectors they represent vary widely. In FY 2025/26, more than 40% of open enrollment participants came from healthcare and pharma, banking and financial services, and real estate; others came from government and NGOs, construction, education, engineering, and technology. Three programs line up directly with those growing pains. The Advanced Management Program covers the broader mix of strategy, finance, and people management that leaders need as a business grows. The Supply Chain Management Professional Certificate covers supply and inventory planning, and the Digital Marketing Certificate covers competing for customers online.

The course comes after the diagnosis. The school’s Business Solutions team starts with a training needs assessment and designs the program around the company’s own challenges and the roles it needs to strengthen. For a smaller firm, that can mean training for the leadership team, an exclusive cohort, or a few managers joining an open enrollment program.

For more information on AUC Onsi Sawiris School of Business Executive Education’s programs, click here.

Innovo Group appoints Emaar Misr’s Mostafa El Kady to lead its real estate development arm

London-based Innovo Group tapped Mostafa El Kady (LinkedIn) as CEO and managing director of its real estate development arm, effective this month, according to a statement (pdf). El Kady joins after a seven-year run at the helm of Emaar Misr 2019–2026, where he oversaw the developer’s project deliveries and built out its commercial and hospitality recurring revenue portfolios. At Innovo, he will oversee the developer’s local pipeline, strategic partnerships, and expansion into integrated mixed-use schemes.

Mabany Edris taps NBE for EGP 975 mn to speed up Koun construction in Ras El Hekma

The National Bank of Egypt (NBE) is extending a EGP 975 mn, five-year facility to real estate developer Mabany Edris to finance part of its Koun development in Ras El Hekma, Al Mal reports. The facility supports Mabany Edris’s push to speed up construction: the company is racing to finish its existing projects — Koun among them — and aims to begin handovers ahead of schedule, Chairman Mohamed Edris said.

IN CONTEXT- The facility comes as North Coast developers face a cashflow squeeze. Payment plans have stretched to an average of c. 7.8 years, up from c. 4.5 years in 2023-2024, according to Knight Frank. Koun’s own plan runs up to 10 years, according to the developer’s website — leaving construction costs due well before customer payments arrive.

Stock-hold syndrome

The EGX suspended trading in Digitize for Investment and Technology (DGTZ.CA) from yesterday’s session, canceling all orders on the book, citing a letter it sent the company about the minutes of a 3 November board meeting, according to a bourse announcement. This comes a day after the listing committee started the delisting clock. It invoked Article 53 on 3 November, giving Digitize two weeks to file standalone and consolidated statements for FY 2025, 1Q 2026, and 2Q 2026 or appear before the committee for a decision to strike the shares. The same session fined it EGP 5k for not disclosing its shareholder and board structure as of 30 September.

REFRESHER- Digitize moved from the SME board to the main market in 2024. The FRA sanctioned it in November 2025 and warned investors to approach the stock with caution over 11 examination findings, and the listing committee fined it four times over the summer, EGP 110k in six weeks. Insiders sold an estimated 5.46 mn shares through eight months of falling prices, as we reported in August. The shares are down roughly three-quarters over the past year.

Next stop, Menoufia

Sadat City’s dry port in Menoufia is slated to break ground in 1H 2027, with the first phase costing an estimated EGP 3 bn, Asharq Business reports, citing two government officials. The first phase would cover 35 of the site’s 90 feddans, connect to the railway network, and serve Sadat City’s industry and exporters. The Transport Ministry’s Holding Company for Maritime and Land Transport will build the port with an unnamed local logistics and storage firm through a self-financed project that will take up to 30 months to complete, with licenses and approvals still required. The plan follows the Cabinet’s approval last week for the holding company to set up a company to build and run the port.

The bigger picture: The project is set to join a pipeline including two operational dry ports, namely the 6th of October dry port and Alexandria’s El Amreya, which went online in mid-October. MSC subsidiary MedLog’s 10th of Ramadan hub is due in 2027, and Sky Ports is developing a site in New Borg El Arab. All fall under the Transport Ministry’s plan for 33 dry ports and logistics zones, which aims to link industrial clusters to Mediterranean and Red Sea ports by rail and road, easing seaport congestion and cutting freight costs for exporters.

Bank in business

The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) extended USD 4 bn in financing to three Egyptian banks this year, namely the National Bank of Egypt, Banque Misr, and Arab African International Bank, Asharq Business reports, citing an unnamed bank insider. The financing — up 300% y-o-y — is intended to support foreign trade and SMEs and add liquidity. Across all Egyptian borrowers, the source put Afreximbank’s financing at around USD 9 bn so far this year and said it targets USD 10 bn by year-end, up 67% y-o-y. Recipients included Egyptian banks, infrastructure companies, and state-owned firms, with financing for a single company reaching up to USD 1.5 bn.

The bank is also moving ahead with a gold refinery and a specialized gold bank in Egypt, the source added. The Central Bank of Egypt and Afreximbank signed an MoU in December 2025 to establish a pan-African gold bank in an unnamed Egyptian freezone. Afreximbank’s Ayman Elzoghby said in June that construction of the refinery should start by end-2026 — production is targeted to start in 2027 or 2028.

ALSO- Afreximbank and the African Petroleum Producers’ Organization launched the Africa Energy Bank in Nigeria, according to a press release. The bank’s inaugural general meeting in Abuja on Saturday established an authorized capital base of USD 5 bn, appointed former HSBC Egypt deputy CEO Helmy Ghazi (LinkedIn) as its first president, and formed its founding board of directors. It aims to finance projects across the energy value chain, from exploration and production to refining and distribution. The release says traditional lenders are pulling back from fossil fuels and puts the continent’s energy investment needs at USD 200 bn.

One more year

More time for Acwa: The National Council for Green Hydrogen greenlit Acwa Power’s request for another year on an MoU covering land for a project in the East Nile area, which targets annual output of 66k tons of green hydrogen and 500k tons of green ammonia, according to a Cabinet statement.

REMEMBER- In December 2023, Egypt signed a USD 4 bn framework agreement with Acwa Power to develop a green hydrogen project targeting an annual production of 600k tons of green ammonia in its first phase. The agreement marked Acwa’s fifth green energy project in Egypt, with others including a 200 MW Kom Ombo solar power plant and a 1.1 GW wind farm in the Gulf of Suez.

JPMorgan and HSBC want to arrange the risk transfers that let development banks lend more

JPMorgan and HSBC are drumming up a new line of business arranging securitizations that let development banks offload credit risk to private investors and make capital available, Bloomberg reports, citing the two lenders. The move follows a formal pledge early last month by 30 multilateral development banks (MDBs) and development finance institutions (DFIs) to make synthetic risk transfers (SRTs) and collateralized loan obligations (CLOs) a standard part of how they fund themselves, according to Reuters.

So what’s the choreography behind it? A development bank pays an outside investor, usually a pension fund, an insurer, or a hedge fund, to absorb part of the credit losses on a loan portfolio. Regulators and rating agencies then let the bank hold less capital against those loans, and it can lend the difference again. The potential pool is large, with MDBs holding around USD 1.5 tn in development assets between them, according to a joint report by the lenders. The urgency comes from shrinking support from wealthy shareholder governments.

Investors have already tested the waters. Dutch pension manager PGGM anchored an SRT in May, taking part in the mezzanine tranche in the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s (EBRD) inaugural EUR 1 bn synthetic securitization, according to the bank. PGGM’s Luca Paonessa, lead portfolio manager for credit risk sharing investments, tells Bloomberg that appetite should grow as development lenders publish more of their historical loss and default data, which investors need to price the risk.

For the banks, the real prize is a repeatable product. JPMorgan’s Faheen Allibhoy, who heads the bank’s development finance and advisory team, argues the market needs regular, standardized issuance to take hold. “You can’t do one-offs,” she says. HSBC’s Himesh Patel, managing director and head of public sector banking for EMEA, says the shift “will create further [avenues] across structuring, risk distribution, capital markets execution, and investor placement” — the transaction lifecycle from designing the structures to selling them. Deutsche Bank has also welcomed the shift. Deutsche’s caveat is that volume will be capped by the supply of bankable projects and the depth of investor demand.

Where the bigger risk is: Moving loans off a balance sheet doesn’t, on its own, mean more money reaches developing economies, three ODI Global researchers argued in a recent commentary. They point to the IFC’s co-lending program, where investors set eligibility criteria before the IFC originates a single loan, which means investor preferences can steer what gets financed in the first place.

The push lands days before COP31 opens in Antalya on 9 November, where scaling climate finance for the poorest countries will be high on the agenda. JPMorgan and HSBC are both sending teams. Allibhoy says the new tools are no substitute for the funding shortfall MDBs face.

The mechanics are already in this region. The World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (Miga) wrapped USD 313 mn of HSBC and Standard Chartered trade loans to the National Bank of Egypt in March, and the EBRD’s first risk-sharing facility with an Egyptian bank, USD 25 mn with Emirates NBD Egypt, closed in June 2025. Both moved credit risk off a lender’s book so it could lend again. What JPMorgan and HSBC are pitching is the industrial-scale version of the same trade — and Egypt sits on both sides of it, as a regular borrower from the development banks whose capital is being released and as a securitization issuer in its own right.

OUR TAKE- Private investors will naturally favor loan books with long track records they can price, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The bigger concern is whether MDBs eventually start lending with those investors in mind, favoring loans they can easily securitize over riskier projects in fragile states, early-stage climate adaptation, or sectors where there’s little data to price risk. MDB shareholders need to make sure the capital unlocked by these transactions goes back into the kind of lending private investors are unwilling to finance. Otherwise, securitization could end up changing not just how development banks fund their lending, but who gets that funding in the first place.

MARKETS THIS MORNING-

Korean stocks ended higher yesterday after a volatile session as investors weighed US midterm results. Kospi swung into negative territory on tech losses before recovering to close up +0.6%. In Japan, Nikkei 225 fell -1.4%.

EGX30	50,650	+2.8% (YTD: +21.1%)
USD (CBE)	Buy 54.63	Sell 54.77
USD (CIB)	Buy 54.60	Sell 54.70
Interest rates (CBE)	20.00% deposit	21.00% lending
Tadawul	10,039	+1.7% (YTD: -4.3%)
ADX	9,461	0.0% (YTD: -5.3%)
DFM	6,041	+4.0% (YTD: +0.5%)
S&P 500	7,689	+1.6% (YTD: +12.3%)
FTSE 100	10,829	+1.8% (YTD: +9.0%)
Euro Stox 50	6,266	+2.0% (YTD: +8.1%)
Brent crude	USD 94.40	-8.9%
Natural gas (Nymex)	USD 2.96	+2.2%
Gold	USD 4,073	+3.4%
BTC	USD 80,408	+3.9% (YTD: -8.2%)
S&P Egypt Sovereign Bond Index	1,146	0.0% (YTD: +15.4%)
S&P MENA Bond & Sukuk	148.95	-0.1% (YTD: -1.9%)
VIX (Volatility Index)	16.61	-20.3% (YTD: +11.1%)

THE CLOSING BELL-

The EGX30 rose 2.8% at yesterday’s close on turnover of EGP 9 bn (18.5% below the 90-day average). Local investors were the sole net sellers. The index is up 21.1% YTD.

In the green: Rameda (+7.0%), Ibnsina Pharma (+6.9%), and Edita (+6.6%).

In the red: AMOC (-1.3%), Orascom Development (-0.5%), and Palm Hills Developments (-0.4%).

My Morning Routine: Mohamed El Naggar, CEO of Raya Auto

Mohamed El Naggar, CEO of Raya Auto: Each week, My Morning Routine looks at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions just for fun. Speaking to us this week is Mohamed El Naggar (LinkedIn), CEO of Raya Auto.

Edited excerpts from our conversation:

I’ve spent more than two decades at Raya Group, working across four of its subsidiaries in technology, outsourcing, and automotive. Before taking charge of Raya Auto in November 2019, I held sales and commercial leadership roles at Raya Information Technology and Raya CX, including regional commercial director. I hold an MBA in international business and completed executive education at Harvard Business School.

Working across different sectors taught me to lead by understanding the business inside out. I set clear lines of accountability and build teams that can deliver over the long run. Outside work, I’m a father to two boys, Seif and Zein.

My job is to set Raya Auto’s direction and make sure we can deliver on it. The business has two connected arms: golf cart assembly and retail, and our passenger electric car dealership as Xpeng’s authorized exclusive distributor. I choose partners, allocate investment, and develop our people. At Raya CX, understanding the customer’s business is central to every successful client relationship. In mobility, that means knowing how people will use our cars and what support they’ll expect for as long as they own them.

The market still underestimates how much the car business is becoming a technology and service business. Software, connectivity, and smart features now shape how people experience their cars. The challenge is making that technology useful in daily life. Companies that pair deep product knowledge with consistent support will be better placed to earn lasting trust.

We brought Xpeng to Egypt when few people here believed in electric cars. Buyers have practical questions about charging, servicing, and everyday use. Selling the car is only the start. Our next chapter is about building depth as we grow, with stronger technical knowledge, after-sales support, and customer experience.

I start the day by reviewing my schedule and setting my priorities. I decide what needs my full focus before meetings and messages begin competing for it. That cuts down on task switching and gives the big decisions uninterrupted time. Whenever our schedules allow, I also make time for the family in the morning.

I catch up on EnterpriseAM during the week, usually in a quieter moment when I can read past the headlines. It helps me track the wider business environment beyond the auto sector.

My day moves between our golf cart assembly operations, retail business, automotive teams, and partners. An operational discussion might lead to a performance review, then a partnership or investment that will shape the business for years to come. I enjoy the variety, but it takes discipline to give each conversation proper attention. I also look past the reports, because numbers tell you where to look, while the explanation often comes from the people doing the work. A recurring service question or an operational bottleneck can flag a weak spot before it grows.

Even on my busiest days, I check in with the people I’m responsible for. A brief, direct conversation can reveal what a formal update misses, like where the team needs support or where a decision is stuck. My own time goes to the decisions where I can materially improve the outcome: strategy, investment, key partnerships, and developing our leadership team. Everything else sits with the people closest to the work, as long as they have clear objectives and the authority to act.

Early in your leadership career, it’s tempting to stay involved in everything because you care about the result. As the business grows, that becomes a constraint. When an issue keeps coming back to me, I ask whether we need a clearer process, stronger capabilities, or different ownership. Fixing the problem in front of me matters, but so does making sure the team can handle it without me next time. I’m working on giving leaders more room to take responsibility, and on keeping the habit of stepping back to question my own decisions.

Being available to the business takes judgment. Some periods demand more of your time, especially around a major launch or an operational challenge. But being constantly reachable can turn into a habit. A capable team and clear responsibilities make it possible to step away.

When I’m home, I try to give my family my full attention. It’s easy to be physically there while your mind is still in a meeting, so presence is something I am working on, especially with a busy schedule. Staying involved in the small details of my children’s day keeps us connected, and a conversation or a meal together brings me back to what’s in front of me. Children are very good at interrupting the importance you attach to your own working day. As Seif and Zein grow, I want to enjoy each stage with them rather than assume there will be more time later.

I also enjoy traveling and fishing whenever I get the chance. Travel gives me new surroundings. Fishing gets me outdoors, where I can slow down and disconnect. I value the parts of life that don’t revolve around the next business decision. They send me back to work with more patience and a clearer head.

My recommendation is to occasionally pick something outside your own industry. I’m drawn to conversations about how people build businesses, develop teams, and respond when a plan falls short, because a familiar challenge can look completely different in another setting. Make room for those exchanges in person too. Ask someone in another field what they’re finding difficult or what has changed their thinking lately. It often raises a question I wouldn’t have thought to ask in my usual circle.

Stay teachable as your responsibilities grow. That’s the lesson I keep returning to. It didn’t come from one person, but from the leaders and colleagues I’ve worked with at Raya, especially when moving into a new business or stepping up. People expect a CEO to provide direction, but you still need those who challenge your thinking.

CALENDAR

NOVEMBER

5-7 November (Thursday-Saturday): ICA Annual Conference, Cairo.

6-8 November (Friday-Sunday): Global Entrepreneurship Festival, JW Marriott Hotel, New Cairo.

7-10 November (Sunday-Wednesday): Cairo ICT Forum, Egypt International Exhibition Center, New Cairo.

10 November (Tuesday): Cityscape Egypt Forum, Cairo.

14 November (Saturday): Rolling mills’ Administrative Court challenge.

16-17 November (Monday-Tuesday): World Economic Forum’s (WEF) first dedicated business meeting in Egypt + MENA, New Capital.

DECEMBER

7-10 December (Monday-Thursday): Food Africa, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo.

11-12 December (Friday-Saturday): ISER International Conference, Cairo.

17 December (Thursday): Monetary Policy Committee’s eighth meeting of 2026.

17-20 December (Thursday-Sunday): MacTech Egypt, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo.

EVENTS WITH NO SET DATE

2H 2026: Operations at Deli Glass Co’s new USD 70 mn glassware factory kick off.

2026: The Egyptian-American Economic Forum.

2027

20 January-7 February: Egypt to host the African Games.

1-3 February (Monday-Wednesday): Agri Expo, Cairo International Convention Center.

April 2027: Tenth of Ramadan dry port and logistics hub to begin operations.

29 September - 2 October (Wednesday-Saturday): Cityscape Egypt Exhibition, Cairo.

EVENTS WITH NO SET DATE

2027: Egypt to host EBRD’s annual meetings.

2027: Egypt-EU Summit 2027.

End of 2027: Trial operations at the Dabaa nuclear power plant expected to take place.

September 2028: First unit of the Dabaa nuclear power plant begins operations.

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