Sections

About

Privacy & Support

Get EnterpriseAM daily

Available in your choice of English or Arabic

Tuesday, 12 May 2026

What We’re Tracking Today
Economy
Economy
Pharma
Earnings Watch
Moves
Planet Finance
Going Green
Calendar

Egypt files its reform credentials ahead of IMF's last review

An independent publication supported by

Opening up a world of opportunity

Realize More

Live More

Powering with nature

Driving growth

Today at a glance

1

Economy

Egypt files its reform credentials ahead of IMF’s last review.
2

Economy

CBE pushes single-digit inflation outlook to 2H 2027 amid war impact.
3

PHARMA

Pharco doubles down on local capex and Gulf expansion amid pricing squeeze.
4

Moves

Investment Minister Mohamed Farid taps four new assistant ministers.
5

WHAT WE’RE TRACKING TODAY

Fertilizer producers secure 15% slice of India’s international tender.
6

EARNINGS WATCH

CIB sees net income climb 7% in 1Q.
7

PLANET FINANCE

Aramco’s USD 32.5 bn 1Q is a verdict on infrastructure redundancy.
8

Going Green

OECD lays out the policy stack to move green hydrogen projects forward.

Tuesday, 12 May 2026

What We’re Tracking Today
Economy
Economy
Pharma
Earnings Watch
Moves
Planet Finance
Going Green
Calendar
1

WHAT WE’RE TRACKING TODAY

Local fertilizer firms step in to fill India’s fertilizer gap

Good morning, lovely people, and welcome to a reform-stacked issue. We have word the government has submitted its updated reform package to the IMF ahead of the mission landing on 15 June for the combined seventh and eighth reviews. The question the IMF will likely be looking to answer is whether the reforms will hold once they exit stage left.

The CBE’s 1Q Monetary Policy Report gives part of the answer. Single-digit inflation has been pushed to 2H 2027, the Bank says, and a notable rewrite of what was supposed to be Egypt’s clean exit narrative.

In other news this morning: We spoke with Pharco's Sherine Helmy on how the pharma giant is navigating the mandatory pricing squeeze, and we introduce the four incoming assistant ministers at the Investment Ministry.

CORRECTION- In yesterday’s story on the National Bank of Egypt (NBE) acquiring a 20% stake in Scatec’s Obelisk solar project, we wrote Matouk Bassiouny & Hennawy (MBH) advised Scatec on the transaction based on an initial press release from the firm. Our friends at MBH have since shared an updated statement (pdf) to clarify that they acted as counsel to the NBE on the transaction. We have updated the story on our website to reflect the change.

***

THANK YOU to everyone who filled out our first listener survey. If you’re seeing this for the first time, Morning Drive has been up and running for a while now, and we think it’s time for a quick check-in. So if you have a few minutes to spare, we’d love to hear from you, whether you’re a longtime listener, you’ve only just heard us, or you’re somewhere in between. AND — here’s today’s episode.***

Harvesting Indian demand

Egypt's fertilizer producers are filling the gaps of the global supply chain, securing a 15% slice of an international tender to supply India with 2.5 mn tons of nitrogen fertilizers this June, Arabic press reports, citing unnamed traders and manufacturers.

The champions: Local tenders secured contracts to deliver between 300k and 350k tons to the South Asian giant, with Abu Qir Fertilizers, Mopco, and Egyptian Fertilizers Company scooping up the lion's share of 240k tons and Helwan Fertilizers, Alexandria Fertilizers, and Kima splitting the remaining 100k tons. But the factories have to meet local demand first, delivering their monthly quota of up to 220k tons before sending shipments to India.

Why it matters: With the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed and traditional Gulf suppliers halting shipments, India is turning to Egypt. This surging demand allows local firms to command massive premiums, locking in tender prices between USD 850 and USD 880 per ton — nearly double the pre-crisis average.

IN NUMBERS- The country produces roughly 12 mn tons of fertilizer annually, accounting for over 4% of global production. 8mn tons of that is nitrogen-based fertilizers, making Egypt the seventh-largest urea producer in the world.

Somali piracy strikes again

Eight Egyptian sailors have been kidnapped after the oil tanker M/T Eureka was hijacked yesterday off Yemeni shores and taken to Somali waters. Foreign Minister Badr Abdelaty has directed the Egyptian Embassy in Mogadishu to coordinate with Somali authorities to ensure the release of the crew.

PSA-

WEATHER- We hope you’re staying cool as temperatures approach 40°C in Cairo today. Expect a high of 39°C and a low of 19°C, according to our favorite weather app.

It’s enviously much nicer in Alexandria, with a high of 26°C and a low of 17°C.

Riyadh to Mumbai. Abu Dhabi to Singapore. Dubai to London. Cairo to Shenzhen.

The most important business stories in MENA aren’t happening inside MENA anymore — they’re happening at the edges, where regional capital meets global ambition.

EnterpriseAM MENA+ is our new flagship newsletter, built to cover the flows of capital, people, and ideas across the Middle East — and beyond it. AI, geopolitics, the war for talent, sovereign wealth strategy, the changing energy economy, and the new corridors reshaping global trade.

Tap or click here to get your own copy delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 12pm UAE | 11am KSA | 11am Egypt.

The big story abroad

News outlets are following the ups-and-downs of the regional conflict, the latest of which is President Donald Trump’s characterization of the ceasefire as “on massive life support.” Trump called Tehran’s counterproposal to end the monthslong war as “unacceptable,” with the major sticking point being Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium.

Washington has released 53.3 mn barrels of crude from its reserves to steady oil markets in light of the Iran war, loaning out the supply to nine companies, including ExxonMobil, Trafigura, and Marathon.

One step closer to Warsh’s Fed: Trump’s pick for Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, is one step closer to securing the position, following yesterday’s so-called cloture vote by the Senate. Outgoing chief Jerome ‌Powell’s term ends on Friday.

Meanwhile, in the entertainment business: Sony Music Group acquired the rights to more than 45k songs from alternative asset manager Blackstone under an almost USD 4 bn agreement. The catalogue includes iconic tracks by Journey, Leonard Cohen, and others.

*** 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’re exploring how Egypt’s potential as a global green hydrogen hub is hindered by high financing costs, insufficient infrastructure, and a significant cost-competitiveness gap — and what to do to fix it.

Tags:

Sailors chasing the wind to Somabay shores.

From 14-16 May, the first-ever Somabay Sailing Festival 2026 brings together world-class regattas, elevated seaside experiences, and vibrant energies. Marking a new milestone for the destination and the future vision of GranMarina, the festival sets the tone for a new era of sailing experiences at Somabay.

Brought to you by Red Sea Sails.

Click here to explore the full experience.

2

Economy

The final stretch

The government has submitted updates to the IMF on its structural reform package ahead of the Fund’s mission arriving on 15 June, three senior government officials tell EnterpriseAM. The mission will conduct the combined seventh and eighth reviews of Egypt’s Extended Fund Facility — expected to unlock USD 3.3 bn in disbursements plus tranches linked to the Resilience and Sustainability Facility — as the program enters its final seven months.

The real question: will the reforms hold once the program ends? The package is designed to demonstrate that the reforms are durable, not just sufficient to clear the current review, ensuring the system can weather future shocks without leaning heavily on external bailouts.

The SOP was rewritten… again. The State Ownership Policy — the cornerstone commitment on a state exit from a number of economic sectors — has been overhauled for the third time. The government has scrapped the previous 35-company divestment list — a revision of an earlier list — in favor of a larger asset pool, and revised the sector exit ratios. The IMF has accepted that regional pressures have slowed execution, our sources tell us, but the Fund “wants to ensure that the exit in favor of the private sector remains a core pillar of the structural reform agenda before the program’s end.”

The fiscal math is tight. The government is targeting a 5% primary surplus by FY2026/27, which requires an additional 1% of GDP in consolidation. The shortfall is partly structural — Suez Canal revenues have dropped sharply, and the hole has to be plugged somewhere. The answer is a 30% increase in tax revenues next fiscal year, our sources tell us, driven primarily by VAT exemption cuts rather than higher rates. Government entities will also lose the tax perks that have given them a competitive advantage over private-sector rivals — a long-standing IMF demand the gov’t has fallen short on.

What the IMF’s own scorecard says: The Fund noted in its last review that the government has delivered on primary surpluses — but the other two pillars of its debt strategy, divestment and maturity lengthening, have stalled. Interest payments are consuming roughly 73% of government revenues. The Fund’s verdict was that debt is sustainable, but not with high probability.

Energy pricing is being restructured — not just reduced. The government is tying natural gas prices for industrial users to an international pricing formula, converting what has been an administered price into a rules-based mechanism. As a result, the energy subsidy bill will drop from EGP 75 bn to EGP 15.8 bn. For the IMF, this is one of the criteria to ensure the stability of indicators while phasing out energy subsidies, our sources tell us.

What’s next: The government aims to cut its gross financing needs by 9-11% of GDP over the next two years. To pull this off, the Finance Ministry is extending debt maturities and locking in concessional, low-interest funding to offset our high domestic borrowing costs. But hitting those targets will require a more ambitious strategy on extending maturities and cutting interest costs than what's currently on the table, the Fund noted in the last review.

Tags:

This publication is proudly sponsored by

3

Economy

CBE’s wait and see

Pause for thought: The Central Bank of Egypt’s 1Q 2026 Monetary Policy Report(pdf) paints a more cautious picture of the economy as escalating regional conflict reshapes inflation expectations and weighs on growth. Here are the takeaways.

War rewrites the rate path

Let’s wait and see: The CBE held rates at its April meeting, effectively pausing its easing cycle after a cumulative 825 bps in cuts since April 2025. The bank has adopted a “wait-and-see approach” to ensure policy stays restrictive enough to anchor inflation expectations while maintaining a positive real interest rate margin.

Disinflation is off track. The US-Iran conflict has significantly altered the global and domestic outlook. The energy shock “disrupted the relative stability inflation had seen recently and slowed down its downward path,” the CBE says in the report. Brent crude briefly crossed USD 100 / bbl in mid-March for the first time in over four years.

The two big revisions

Sharp rise in revised inflation outlook: The CBE now sees headline inflation averaging 16-17% in 2026 — well above the 11% projected in the 4Q 2025 report — and 12-13% in 2027. Inflation will stay above the 7% (±2%) target range through 4Q 2026, and single-digit prints are no longer expected before 2H 2027.

Growth is losing momentum. GDP growth is now projected at 4.9% in FY 2025/26 (down from a previous forecast of 5.1%) and 4.8% in FY 2026/27 (from 5.5%), with the downgrade primarily driven by lower expected contributions from tourism and the Suez Canal. The bank has pushed back its Suez recovery timeline to 1Q 2027 from 3Q 2026.

Two things going right

Buffers are working. Remittances from Egyptians working abroad hit a record USD 11.3 bn in 4Q 2025, up 29% y-o-y, and net foreign reserves climbed to USD 52.8 bn by end-March 2026 — leaving us entering the shock of war repercussions with stronger external buffers than in previous crises, the CBE writes.

The rate cuts are reaching the banking system. Around 96% of the CBE's cumulative cuts since April 2025 have flowed through to interbank lending rates, which are the rates banks charge each other. Rate cuts are the first stop on the way to cheaper credit for businesses and households. High transmission means the easing cycle is working as designed — low transmission would mean the cuts were stuck somewhere in the system.

Our take

Higher for longer is now the operating frame. The CBE reiterated its commitment to restoring price stability but warned inflation risks will remain heightened if regional tensions persist.

Tags:
4

PHARMA

Navigating the squeeze

How is Pharco trying to grow amid the mandatory pricing squeeze? Local pharma giant Pharco is leaning on industrial investment, operational efficiency, and exports to protect margins in a market where pricing reviews still lag production costs, Chairman Sherine Helmy tells EnterpriseAM. “The core challenge is not just whether some products get price increases, but the continued gap between actual production costs and the speed at which prices are updated,” he says — a gap weighing on profitability across the sector.

The familiar pressure point

Egypt imports more than 90% of its pharma raw materials, leaving local manufacturers exposed to FX swings and supply chain disruptions, Egyptian Drug Authority (EDA) head Ali El Ghamrawy previously told us. The Madbouly government recently settled 90% of arrears owed to pharma companies — after the Unified Procurement Authority lagged badly last year, racking upbns in unpaid arrears.

Why the arrears exist: Egypt’s public health system is the single largest pharma buyer in the country, purchasing through the Unified Procurement Authority — a centralized bulk-buying model designed to drive down costs. While it’s a sound strategy in theory, it also centralizes the payment bottleneck, so when the government is money-strapped — which it has been chronically in the past few years — payments get delayed.

Pricing adjustment is moving slow

Pharco has seen some of its portfolio go through regulatory pricing reviews, Helmy says, yet the gap between costs and prices remains wide. Hundreds of firms called for price hikes across the board last year — a demand EDA has resisted, arguing that the EGP's appreciation against the USD should offset squeezed margins.

The government is preparing to hike prices for around 150 imported meds without local alternatives — instead of reviewing the list of over 3k drugs that pharma companies have been lobbying for, Egyptian Chambers of Commerce's pharma division head Ali Ouf told us earlier this month.

How we got here: Egypt regulates drug prices to keep medicines affordable. The catch is prices are set in EGP, but most inputs are imported and priced in USD. When the EGP devalued sharply between 2022 and 2024, manufacturers' costs spiked while selling prices stayed mostly fixed.

Pharco’s answer?

Chase efficiency, not just a price hike. Rather than wait for pricing approvals to catch up with costs, the company is pushing operating efficiency, higher-value local manufacturing, and exports as margin buffers, Helmy says. They are targeting EGP 18 bn in sales by year-end, up from EGP 15 bn in 2025, with local market share aimed at around 9%.

Saudi Arabia is the other hedge: The company is moving ahead with its SAR 155 mn plant in Medina, covering the first two phases of the project, with production expected to begin in 2028, Helmy says. The plant will start with solid dosage forms — meeting around 70% of the Saudi market's needs — before expanding into biologics and vaccines.

But Egypt remains the export base. “Operating the Saudi plant will not reduce our exports from Egypt to the Gulf,” Helmy tells us. “Our factories in Egypt will remain a main export hub serving around 50 global markets, while the Medina plant will focus on meeting local Saudi demand.” The Saudi expansion also spreads the funding burden through Pharco's partnership with Ashmore and the Saudi Investment Company, while giving the group another FX revenue stream to support the supply chains for its Egypt-based factories.

Tags:
5

EARNINGS WATCH

CIB starts the year strong

CIB saw its net income climb 7% y-o-y to EGP 17.8 bn in 1Q 2026 on the back of higher net interest income, which saw a 17% y-o-y jump to EGP 29.7 bn, according to its latest earnings release (pdf). Higher net interest income helped offset the 7% y-o-y dip in non-interest income, which the lender attributed to “non-recurring [income] from selling shares of associates” in 1Q 2025. Revenues amounted to EGP 31.2 bn for the period, marking a 15% y-o-y increase.

Loan performance: The bank’s local currency loan-to-deposit ratio reached an all-time peak of 72%, bolstered by a 5% growth in deposits, amounting to EGP 33 bn, in the year’s first three months alone. The quarter’s loan growth was also driven by the institutional banking sector, which expanded by 8%, or EGP 41 bn.

What can we expect from the lender over the coming period? “Moving forward, and in light of the ambiguity surrounding the geopolitical, and subsequently the macroeconomic, scene, management currently places balance sheet resilience and operating model efficiency as its top priority and first line of defense, uncompromised by profitability aspirations,” management said.

Tags:

6

Moves

Stacking the bench

Investment Minister Mohamed Farid has named four new assistant ministers drawn from the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA), the EGX, and the State Council — a team weighted heavily toward regulatory drafting and digital infrastructure rather than promotion, the ministry said this week.

The line-up is as follows:

#1- Sherif Yehia (LinkedIn) — assistant minister for development anddigital transformation. A 22-year IT and cybersecurity veteran, most recently advisor to Farid and before that the FRA's senior IT official. He will be tasked with rebuilding the ministry's digital architecture, streamline investor services, and bring AI into daily operations.

#2- Said Arafa (LinkedIn) — assistant minister for investment contracts. Twenty-five years drafting economic legislation, including tenures as counsel on regulatory matters to the Public Enterprises Ministry and the EGX after a long run at the FRA. He will now tighten investment contracts and renew complex public-private partnership agreements.

#3- Ali Azab — assistant minister for legislative affairs. Fifteen years at the State Council, specializing in economic and investment disputes and public contracts. Azab will now overhaul existing investment laws and draft new ones.

#4- Mohamed Ayyad (LinkedIn) — assistant minister for promotion andmedia communication. Five years advising the FRA chairman, four before that as deputy assistant chairman at the EGX, and 18 years across capital markets and financial journalism. He will run the pitch to global investors.

What’s the signal? Three of the four come out of the FRA or the EGX, and two are lawyers. It looks like Minister Farid is shifting focus from the story we tell investors to the contracts they have to sign, the laws that sit beneath, and the digital infrastructure that gets them from interest to closing. The first test will be the state’s IPO program, which aims to list at least four state-owned companies by December.

Tags:

7

PLANET FINANCE

Aramco’s bypass operation

The world's largest oil company delivered the clearest earnings argument yet for why redundancy is key in a chokepoint world. Aramco’s 1Q numbers landed with a surge that, under geopolitical assumptions, should have been a war-disrupted miss — instead, the company earned more than ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP combined.

The chokepoint premium

The numbers and narratives: The company reported USD 32.5 bn in net income — up 25% y-o-y and 34% q-o-q — ahead of LSEG consensus estimate of USD 30.95 bn, even as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which carries 20% of the world's energy trade, faced severe disruption during the first quarter.

The explanation lies in infrastructure designed decades ago for a contingency scenario. The East-West Pipeline, which ramped up to its full 7 mn bbl / d capacity during the quarter (5 mn bbl / d for exports and 2 mn bbl / d for west coast refineries), allowed crude to bypass Hormuz entirely, and “has proven itself to be a critical supply artery, helping to mitigate the impact of a global energy shock and providing relief to customers affected by shipping constraints,” CEO Amin Nasser said in Aramco’s earnings statement (pdf). In a conventional oil market, spare infrastructure drags on returns. In today’s market, it manufactures them.

The scale of the inversion is striking. Iran's blockade of Hormuz removed nearly 1 bn barrels from global markets over the past two months, according to Nasser, with Brent climbing through the quarter and now trading above USD 100. Aramco itself absorbed direct attacks on energy infrastructure, with throughput restored within days. The Saudi giant still raised revenue to USD 124 bn, held a USD 21.9 bn dividend, and preserved supply reliability at 96.3% — largely by rerouting flows through the pipeline and its storage network.

The optionality trade

Energy markets have long priced producers on efficiency — output growth, reserve life, refining margins, and capital discipline — treating redundancy as a drag. That logic is shifting as geopolitics moves into core pricing. Physical redundancy — pipelines, storage, and alternative export routes — is being re-rated as optionality. Call it the chokepoint premium: the value markets assign to a producer's ability to physically deliver barrels under stress, not just to produce them cheaply.

This quarter suggests the early stages of a broader repricing. In a market dominated by chokepoint risk, the survivability of export pathways is becoming as important as upstream economics.

That shift is beginning to surface across the region. Egypt's Sumed pipeline — long regarded as legacy infrastructure following shifts in global crude trade flows — has regained relevance amid tensions, operating near full capacity for the first time in years because it offers something markets are discovering they are short on: optionality. Adnoc’s Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline from Habshan to Fujairah carries the same premium on a smaller scale, with a nameplate capacity of 1.5-1.8 mn bbl / d.

The K-shape, in barrels

The same shock that made redundant producers richer is destabilizing dependent importers. India has already recorded more than USD 20 bn in equity outflows this year as higher oil prices collided with one of the world’s largest import bills. Across South Asia, Sri Lanka has reintroduced subsidy mechanisms, alongside seeking IMF relief, while Pakistan entered the shock with low foreign reserves and is grappling to cover imports.

Egypt’s financing conditions also tightened — as Gulf war risks pushed credit default swaps (CDS) spreads higher and regional debt markets cooled, with MENA’s bond issuance falling 12% y-o-y in 1Q. The same shock that turned spare infrastructure into a strategic asset is turning emerging-market borrowers without it into a credit risk.

Months, or 2027?

The timeline depends entirely on Hormuz. Nasser told Bloomberg that a quick reopening could mean recovery within months; anything beyond a few more weeks would push normalization into 2027. For producers with the right alternatives, next year looks less like a downside scenario and more like a structural feature. For importers without fiscal cover, it may be the year when temporary repricing becomes permanent.

MARKETS THIS MORNING-

Asia-Pacific markets opened in the green this morning, echoing gains seen on Wall Street that pushed both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to close at record highs. Market momentum is underpinned by a wave of solid US earnings, which have managed to insulate investor sentiment even as the US-Iran ceasefire remains on “life support.”

EGX30

54,475

-0.3% (YTD: +30.2%)

USD (CBE)

Buy 52.75

Sell 52.89

USD (CIB)

Buy 52.77

Sell 52.87

Interest rates (CBE)

19.00% deposit

20.00% lending

Tadawul

11,158

+0.4% (YTD: +6.4%)

ADX

9,788

-0.5% (YTD: -2.1%)

DFM

5,820

-1.4% (YTD: -3.8%)

S&P 500

7,413

+0.2% (YTD: +8.3%)

FTSE 100

10,269

+0.4% (YTD: +3.4%)

Euro Stoxx 50

5,895

-0.3% (YTD: +1.7%)

Brent crude

USD 104.21

+2.9%

Natural gas (Nymex)

USD 2.92

+0.4%

Gold

USD 4,749

+0.4%

BTC

USD 81,864

-0.2% (YTD: -6.6%)

S&P Egypt Sovereign Bond Index

1,050

+0.1% (YTD: +5.8%)

S&P MENA Bond & Sukuk

151.88

-0.1% (YTD: 0.0%)

VIX (Volatility Index)

18.38

+6.9% (YTD: +22.9%)

THE CLOSING BELL-

The EGX30 fell 0.3% at yesterday’s close on turnover of EGP 11.3 bn (49.2% above the 90-day average). Regional investors were the sole net sellers. The index is up 30.2% YTD.

In the green: Kima (+5.4%), Arabian Cement Company (+3.8%), and Heliopolis Housing (+3.1%).

In the red: TMG Holding (-1.8%), Edita (-1.7%), and E-Finance (-1.6%).

Tags:

Our weekly deep dive into the green economy and ESG issue in Egypt.

Published every Tuesday in EnterpriseAM.

Read going Green
8

Going Green

Green hydrogen pipe dreams

Our green hydrogen sector has a math problem, and the OECD just sketched out how to solve it. Producing a kilogram of green hydrogen here costs USD 3.7-4.8, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates in a new report (pdf) — at least double the USD 1.8 target in our national strategy, and two to three times the USD 1.40-1.80 it costs to make the fossil-based fuel. Capturing 5-8% of the global market by 2040, as our national plan envisions, will need USD 45.6 bn in investments just to reach 1.5 mn tons of annual capacity by 2030.

Despite a pile of preliminary agreements, final investment decisions remain scarce. A host of obstacles work against FID, ranging from country risk to high borrowing costs driven by macro volatility to a sovereign rating deep in speculative territory and weak global demand coupled with missing transport corridors to Europe.

Capex grants do the heaviest lifting. Targeted at electrolyzers and renewable systems, they could close 70-90% of the competitiveness gap — far more effective than green premiums or carbon pricing, the OECD says. Because large-scale green hydrogen is still early-stage with thin operational track records, grants are what unlocks private capital that would otherwise find the risk-return profile unattractive.

The cheapest production model is a hybrid, not off-grid. Co-locate on-site renewables, electrolyzers, and pressurized storage — but stay connected to the national grid for the 2-5% of electricity needed when wind and sun aren’t cooperating. The alternative is paying for very expensive batteries to keep things running. High-wind, high-solar sites like Ras Gharib can push the levelized cost of hydrogen to the low end of the range.

SOUND SMART- An electrolyzer is the machine that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity. When that electricity comes from renewables, the hydrogen is “green.” Off-grid systems need battery storage to keep producing when the wind drops or the sun sets; hybrid systems borrow from the grid instead.

FX risk is the other choke point. While project costs are in hard currency, revenues accrued are likely in EGP. The OECD’s fix is to bring domestic banks into the EGP-denominated components, lean on FX assurances from international financial institutions, and prioritize export-oriented projects that earn hard currency as a natural hedge.

The regulatory plumbing is moving… slowly. An independent transmission manager and peer-to-peer trading frameworks let renewable generators pool output for hydrogen producers. The Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company has separated from the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company and started approving electricity sale licenses under a P2P system. The next step? Move from project-by-project infrastructure to a common-user model — shared pipelines, desalination plants, and export terminals, especially in the Suez Canal Economic Zone. Namibia and Brazil have done it.

Derivatives are the easier sell. Green ammonia, green iron, and e-methanol travel better than gaseous hydrogen and have strong export potential to the EU — important given the bloc's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. Green iron from Egypt is c. 25% cheaper to produce than in the EU thanks to lower renewable costs. Green ammonia, the most scalable liquid hydrogen carrier on the market, can ride on our existing fertilizer industry.

There’s still a missing piece: offtake agreements. Green hydrogen is too expensive for buyers and too risky for producers, so the OECD suggests a government-backed intermediary running a contracts-for-difference mechanism — buying from producers at a fixed price, selling to offtakers at the market price, and absorbing the difference. That's what moves projects off MoU paper and into the ground.

Tags:

CALENDAR

2026

MAY

21 May (Thursday): Monetary Policy Committee’s third meeting of 2026.

27-29 May (Wednesday-Friday): Eid El Adha (TBC).

JUNE

15 June (Monday): Seventh review of the IMF’s Extended Fund Facility.

30 June (Tuesday): National holiday in observance of the June 30 Revolution (TBC).

JULY

9 July (Thursday): Monetary Policy Committee’s fourth meeting of 2026.

23 July (Thursday): National holiday in observance of Revolution Day (TBC).

AUGUST

20 August (Thursday): Monetary Policy Committee’s fifth meeting of 2026.

26 August (Wednesday): National holiday in observance of Prophet Muhammad’s birthday (TBC).

SEPTEMBER

15 September (Tuesday): IMF to hold its eighth review of Egypt’s USD 8 bn EFF arrangement.

24 September (Thursday): Monetary Policy Committee’s sixth meeting of 2026.

27-29 September (Sunday-Tuesday): Global Conference on Population, Health, and Human Development.

OCTOBER

6 October (Tuesday): Armed Forces Day.

29 October (Thursday): Monetary Policy Committee’s seventh meeting of 2026.

DECEMBER

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

EVENTS WITH NO SET DATE

1Q 2026: Trial operations for the Ain Sokhna-Sixth of October section of Egypt’s first high-speed rail line scheduled to begin.

May 2026: End of extension for developers on 15% interest rates for land installment payments.

July 2026: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer set to visit Egypt.

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.

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

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.

Now Playing
Now Playing
00:00
00:00