Egypt is open for business. That’s the message Investment and International Cooperation Minister Sahar Nasr plugged in an interview with Bloomberg's David Westin (watch, runtime 4:29). "We're rebranding Egypt, improving the business environment, and making sure that more investments come in from the US and other partnering countries," she said. The new Investment Act now in the House of Representatives’ pipeline and amendments to the Capital Markets Act are key legislative drivers behind the rebranding, Nasr said.

Nasr said she is finalizing the disbursement of the third tranche of a USD 3 bn WorldBank loan, a process she said could take up to four months. The minister said the loan will be used to back opportunities in energy and manufacturing, she said.

Bloomberg’s Yousef Gamal El-Din then brought a regional analyst in to note that for Egypt, thedevil is in the implementation. Nasser Saidi (Twitter) is the former Lebanese economy minister and ex-Lebanese central banker who went on to become chief economist and head of external relations at DIFC. Now in private practice, he runs the eponymous Nasser Saidi & Associates and was brought on to say that it’s one thing to pass new laws, another to implement them. The key is to see how investor respond to the measures, he said, tipping his hat to Nasr, who he said is a “professional. … it’s always very encouraging to have a professional.” On Egypt’s economy as a whole, Saidi says we’re now at the start of the upswing in the J-curve. (Watch, 4:04)

Nasr’s appearance on Bloomberg comes as part of a media blitz that began immediately after IMF and World Bank spring meetings to support her ministry’s “global investment promotion campaign to highlight Egypt’s value proposition to global public market and strategic investors as the country continues to roll-out an ambitious economic reform program.”

Touching base with the World Bank… At the meetings, Nasr met with World Bank Group president Jim Yong Kim on supporting the private sector and attracting more foreign investment, according to a ministry statement. Kim “commended the government’s economic program and the progress made during a short period of time, in addition to improving the business climate and taking the procedures necessary to attract further foreign investments,” the statement read. Nasr also highlighted opportunities in the Suez Canal economic zone and the new administrative capital in a sit-down Keiko Honda, EVP at the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency. The agency is interested in supporting investment in Egypt over the coming three years, Honda said.

…and top New York-based investors. Nasr has been in the Big Apple the past couple of days, where EFG Hermes and ABANA hosted an institutional investor roundtable for Nasr to introduce her to “leading figures in the US investment community,” said ABANA Chairperson Mona Aboelnaga Kanaan in a statement (pdf). (The ministry’s statement on the same appearance is here.) While in New York, Nasr also discussed investment in petrochemicals and renewable energy with the Export-Import Bank of the United States deputy vice president Hala El Mohandes. Nasr also met with Mourad Wahba, director of the UNDP’s regional bureau for the Arab states.

Among the other meetings on an exhausting schedule: Discussion of sanitation, energy and transport projects with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. A mission from the AIIB is set to visit Egypt, the ministry said in a statement. Nasr also re-opened talks on a USD 1.5 bn loan for development in Sinai from the Saudi Fund for Development. Talks on the second tranche of the loan had been on hold since January, after a court blocked the transfer to Saudi control of the Red Sea islands Tiran and Sanafir.

(And speaking of ABANA, we’d have loved to have been a fly on the wall for its 2017 US-MENATech Summit, held yesterday. Check out ABANA’s Twitter feed for highlights.)

Terror attacks targeting Egypt of late are no different than those that have taken place in London and Paris, Tourism Minister Yehia Rashed told Reuters, adding that “these things happen.” “I think it's proven [that] Egypt is secure. It is safe and tourism is back,” Rashed said on the sidelines of the Arabian Travel Market (ATM) in Dubai. He attributes this revival in tourism in large part to the buzz generated by a series of major archeological discoveries in Egypt. Egypt could attract as many as 10 mn visitors this year, Rashed said, a figure in line with a target of between 10 mn and 12 mn he gave a year ago for 2017.

Egypt plans to promote religious, medical and luxury travel — and develop new markets in India and Eastern Europe in its drive to revive the tourism sector, Rashed told Bloomberg TV (watch, runtime 11:17). “The final target is to get to the 2010 numbers … We should be able to get as close as possible to the target in the next 18 to 24 months,” Rashed said. The revival plan will expand beyond traditional antiquities (Cairo, Luxor) or surf and sun offerings (Red Sea, Sinai) and will include “Holy Family” tours to eight destinations and chasing a slice of the medical tourism industry by capitalizing on the lower cost of some procedures in Egypt.

Rashed also said Egypt will ease travel for residents of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries through an e-visa program as part of a broader plan to boost visitors and encourage longer stays and more spending. Germany remains the top growing market for Egypt, but it is followed by Middle Eastern markets led by Saudi Arabia. Rashed also told Bloomberg 1Q2017 suggested a “very optimistic” outlook for the market, which he said is “well-positioned” to see the return of tourists by diversifying source markets and developing Cairo, Luxor, and Aswan as luxury destinations.

Promotion campaigns in Ramadan, Eid and this summer will target tourists from the GCC, Lebanon, and Jordan, Rashed said, according to an e-mailed statement. The minister met with several leading travel companies on the sidelines of the ATM, and Al-Jazeera Airways has agreed to boost its number of direct Kuwait-Sharm El Sheikh flights. The airline will then do the same with its direct Kuwait-Hurghada route, Rashed said. Fly Dubai and Emirates have also reportedly expressed willingness to increase weekly flights to Sharm El Sheikh, the North Coast, and Hurghada, Al Shorouk reports. Arabs accounted for 36.3% of tourist arrivals in 2016, Rashed said.

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi touched on the economy and social issues at the third National Youth Conference, which kicked off in Ismailia yesterday. El Sisi reaffirmed the importance of the government’s “difficult but necessary” economic reform program. He said that the state is working on creating more job opportunities to improve unemployment rates and cut down on the bloated public sector, which he said requires 20% of its current staff level at most. The president also discussed the country’s mines and quarries, which he said could bring in as much as EGP 17 bn of revenues for the state. According to El Sisi, the state has not been able to bring in EGP 1 bn, which highlights to reform the industry (watch, runtime 3:16). He also announced that the Damietta Furniture City, which will be host to some 1,000 workshops, will be inaugurated “within days” (watch, runtime 1:54).

El Sisi also vowed to respect the outcome of next year’s presidential election, and called on Egyptians to participate in the voting process to ensure their voices are heard. He also apologized to Sinai locals for the persistent security issues in the peninsula, and criticized the media for its portrayal of the situation. El Sisi also announced that 2018 will be the year for individuals with special needs. You can watch the full conference here (runtime 2:15:54).

Egypt currently has 2.6 months’ worth of wheat reserves and expects to buy up to 3.8 mn tonnes from local farmers, Supply Ministry Ali El Moselhy told Reuters. The remarks came as El Moselhy inaugurated the wheat harvest season. He said the reserves figure does not include “quantities of wheat contracted for by GASC but which have not yet arrived and it is unclear how much remains outstanding.” El Moselhy added that the government “always” aims to have four months of reserves, but they are now below the threshold because it is the beginning of the harvest season. The newswire notes that the government had said it is aiming to buy 4-4.5 mn tonnes of wheat initially, higher than the figure quoted by Moselhy, who said “I'm always underestimating.”

…Separately, El Moselhy said he could not comment on increasing subsidies until deliberating the issue with the Finance Minister and that he would not want to give false promises, according to Al Mal. Also, mandatory pricing is practically unfeasible, El Moselhy says, as the government does not produce enough commodities and Egypt runs on a free market.

Goodbye, Social Fund for Development. Hello, SME Development Authority:Prime Minister Sherif Ismail has signed off on the establishment of a small- and medium-sized company development authority under the auspices of the Trade and Industry Ministry as a replacement for the Social Fund for Development. The decision was published in the Official Gazette (pdf) on Monday. The authority, which will meet at least once every two months, is mandated with putting in place a roadmap to encourage investment in SMEs and help smaller companies grow their exports. The authority also looks set to push for land and licensing procedures that are more SME-friendly. The authority’s board will include representatives from the ministries of trade and industry, planning, local development, finance, social solidarity, investment and international cooperation, and CIT as well as the heads of the Federation of Egyptian Industries and the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce.

The Social Solidarity Ministry had apparently raised the minimum requirement employers must pay in social insurance, said the ministry's legal counsel Ahmed Shehat in a meeting with the Union of Egyptian Investors Associations. He did not state how much the ministry had raised this minimum requirement, according to statements picked up by Al Masry Al Youm. The commies with veins of green are apparently feeling a little less socially generous. After taking every opportunity to spout Nasser-era rhetoric, members of the Union have been haggling with the ministry to reduce that amount by up to 40%. So much for putting your money where your mouth is.

MOVES- Lafarge CEO Eric Olsen will step down in July, reportedly under pressure from three big shareholders with strong opinions about how he should do his job, the Financial Times says. Among those shareholders: Nassef Sawiris. Oddly enough, the FT reports, it was Lafarge’s acquisition of Orascom’s contruction arm in a decade ago that saw the company acquire a presence in Syria that led directly to Olsen’s ouster. Olsen led the post-acquisition integration of Orascom into Larfarge as the group’s head of human resources.

EARNINGS WATCH- Arafa Holding recorded a consolidated net profit of USD 7.8 mn in 2016, down from USD 12.45 mn in 2015, a 37% dip. The company said the float of the Egyptian pound had no effect on its results.

New Zealand is considering restricting laptops and other large electronic devices on flights from some Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East, Reuters reports, citing the country’s Prime Minister. The move would follow similar restrictions imposed by the US, UK, and Australia. The restrictions would affect passengers flying from Dubai and Doha, where carriers Emirates and Qatar Airways, respectively, fly direct to New Zealand.