Lost a toilet lid in an Uber?

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WHAT WE’RE TRACKING TONIGHT

THIS EVENING: Gov’t released goods worth USD 16.8 bn from ports in the last two months -Maait

Happy THURSDAY, ladies and gentlemen. We have a relatively calm afternoon here at home to ease the slide into the weekend.

THE BIG STORY TODAY

Goods worth a combined USD 16.8 bn were released from our ports over the past two months, with around USD 8.4 bn-worth of goods released each month, Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said today, according to Asharq Business. That’s an uptick from the average USD 5 bn of goods released from ports during 1Q 2023, Maait noted. However, there remained some USD 5.5 bn-worth of goods stuck at ports as of the end of May, according to the minister.

THE BIG STORY ABROAD

Boris Johnson is fronting the pages of the international press today. The UK’s former PM has been accused of lying to parliament about holding covid-19 lockdown parties in parliament and in his residence. A report, entitled the “party gate” was prepared by the privilege committee and has revealed the accusation and added his use of intimidation and abuse to it. Read more on: BBC | Reuters | CNBC | Financial Times | New York Times

The Enterprise Finance Forum is our flagship gathering — the one so many of you have been waiting for. The two-day event takes place this September and will be the latest in our must-attend series of invitation-only, C-suite-level gatherings. Stay tuned for more information on the location.

TAP OR CLICK HERE if you want to express interest in attending. We’ll be sending out the first batch of invitations just after the 30 June holiday.

Do you want to become a commercial partner? Email mtaalab@enterpriseadvisory.com.

STAY TUNED for more detail about our exciting agenda in the weeks to come.

** CATCH UP QUICK on the top stories from today’s EnterpriseAM:

Qatar could be looking to invest in Egypt’s hospitality sector: The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) is considering acquiring a minority stake in seven hotels in Egypt.
Edita acquires Fancy Foods: Edita Food Industries now owns 100% of local frozen bakery producer Fancy Foods.
Egypt has officially submitted an application to join the BRICS alliance.

ENTERPRISE IS LOOKING FOR SMART, TALENTED PEOPLE of all backgrounds to help us build some very cool new things. Enterprise — the essential morning read on all the important news shaping business and the economy in Egypt and the region — is looking for writers, reporters and editors to help us build out new publications. Today, we run four daily Egypt and MENA-focused publications, five weekly industry verticals, and a weekend lifestyle edition designed to make our readers feel just a bit smarter.

We have tons more in the pipeline — come help us build new publications. We offer the chance to work in a fast-paced newsroom on a broad range of topics and in a variety of formats. Our goal is simple: To create value for our growing community of >250k daily readers by telling stories that matter.

Journalists looking to explore business, finance and economic stories are welcome. So are recent journalism school graduates.

That said, we're looking for gifted story-tellers from all walks of life and across all professions, as long as they show a keen interest in learning to write about the stories, topics, businesses, and figures moving markets. Egyptian and foreign nationals alike are welcome to apply. So are job-switchers: If you’re an equities analyst tired of the rat race, we’re a great place to come work.

NEVER WORKED IN A NEWSROOM BEFORE? We have the Enterprise Business Writing Development Program. Whether you are a recent graduate, an industry vet, or looking to switch careers, the Enterprise Business Writing Development Program will give you the tools you need to tell the most important stories to our audience of C-suite officials, government ministers, diplomats, financiers, investors and entrepreneurs.

During the program you will learn:

The key news stories and trends shaping business and the economy in Egypt and the region, across various sectors;
Business and finance for non-finance people: Whether it's industry jargon or key concepts or simply how to read a balance sheet;
How to construct an Enterprise story: From idea formulation down to the structure, style and tone of writing;
How to develop sources that will give you the key insights needed to tell a complete story;
How to communicate these stories with the confidence and language of an insider.

Not an internship program — a career: The three-month program will see full-time, paid participants take part in workshops and lectures from veteran business journalists, while also working on and filing stories that will run on any of our publications. Those who have successfully completed the program, will then be given long-term job offers.

Apply directly to jobs@enterprisemea.com and mention “writing development program” in your subject line.

☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- Expect a scorcher tomorrow with temperatures peaking at 40°C before dropping to 26°C during the night, according to our favorite weather app.

Cairo’s commuters are forgetting some interesting things in Ubers + Is sustaining life possible on one of Saturn’s moons?

Who’s forgetting a toilet tank lid in an Uber? A Cairo commuter. Uber customers in Cairo have left behind a handful of unusual personal belongings in their Uber cars over the past year, according to Uber’s latest Lost and Found Index (pdf). The most commonly forgotten items are wallets and purses, followed by other bags and boxes, phones and cameras, clothing items, headphones and speakers, and keys. A lot of us in Cairo also tend to forget our phone chargers, glasses, and books. Beyond the run-of-the-mill items, some of the most unusual items in this year’s index include car spare parts, a cooking pot set, an entire shisha kit, a baby shower chair, and — our personal favorite — a toilet tank lid.

There tends to be peak forgetfulness times: It appears that December and January — the stretch of time between mentally checking out of the year and then bringing our brains back online following the winter holidays — are when we are most prone to forgetting our personal belongings, according to the index. The highest number of items forgotten last year was registered on 8 December, followed by 15 December, 17 and 18 January, and 29 December.

Enceladus, an orbiting moon around Saturn, could be habitable — thanks to the recently discovered presence of phosphorus, according to a recent study published in the Nature journal cited by the Wall Street Journal. Researchers have recently detected phosphorus — an element essential for life and is critical for the formation of DNA — in tiny ice particles from the moon’s subsurface ocean. Previous data from NASA missions indicated that Enceladus already had six other elements required to sustain life: Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur, but hadn’t picked up on the presence of phosphorus, the rarest element in the universe. Researchers working more on the findings of the new study suggest that “the moon’s ocean contains at least 100 times as much phosphorus as oceans on Earth.” The majority of phosphorus on Earth is confined in unusable rocks and minerals but Enceladus ocean’s chemistry keeps the element water soluble and accessible for life.

Future studies to explore Saturn’s moons: A NASA mission named Dragonfly is planned to be released to Titan “Saturn’s largest and richly organic moon” in 2027. Another mission would hit Enceladus by nearly 2050 to revolve around and then land on the moon to search for signs of life.

Hammond, Clarkson, and May are at it again in The Grand Tour: Euro Crash

? ON THE TUBE TONIGHT-
(all times CLT)

Gear up for The Grand Tour: Euro Crash’s premiere on Prime Video tomorrow. The infamous Hammond-Clarkson-May trio will be giving gearheads a whirl as they travel across Eastern Europe in cars that no one would even dream of buying today, much less travel in. They will be engaging in their usual shenanigans, races, and debacles as they arrive in Gdańsk in Poland and finish their near 2.2k km trip crossing Slovakia, Hungary, and arriving at their finish line in Slovenia. The gang have promised to try out the former Soviet Union’s answer to Formula 1 racing, while the season will also see them chased by a group of furious archers, and finally, participating in a Fast and Furious finale. Also keep an eye out for a famous racing driver, whose identity remains unknown, being brought onto the show. This edition of The Grand Tour comes after a nine-month hiatus and will be one of the final three editions as the show will come to an end due to Amazon dropping one of the presenters, Jeremy Clarkson.

⚽ Egypt defeated Guinea yesterday to book a qualifying spot in the African Cup of Nations (AfCON), Reutersreported. The national team rose to the top of Group D with a total of 12 points after defeating the West African country 2-1 last night, with Mahmoud Trezeguet Hassan and Mostafa Mohamed each scoring a goal. The pharaohs will participate for a record 26th time in AfCON, which is scheduled to kick off in the Ivory Coast next January, with the draw for the championship taking place in October.

Who’s going to be facing Croatia in the Champions’ League final? We find out today as Italy will be playing Spain in the semi-final match at 9:45pm. The victors will be meeting Croatia on Sunday who axed out Hungary yesterday with a 4-2 victory in their semi-final match.

The European Nations’ Championship qualifying matches will start tomorrow with the following fixtures:

Malta v England (Friday 9:45pm)
Gibraltar v France (Friday 9:45pm)
Belgium v Austria (Saturday 9:45pm)
Portugal v Bosnia-Herzegovina (Saturday 9:45pm)

Hiba Tawaji is back with her first concert in Cairo after three years: The Lebanese singing sensation will be performing in the Cairo Opera house tomorrow starting from 8:30pm to celebrate the release of her new album, Ba’d Seneen. The performance will be conducted by Maestro Ahmed Aweida and under the supervision of Oussama El-Rahbani. Click here to reserve your tickets.

Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake will be performed by the Cairo Opera Ballet Company, accompanied by the Cairo Symphony Orchestra in the Opera House in the main hall. The performance will start at 8:30pm and will be performed over four days from Tuesday, 20 June to Friday, 23 June. Tickets can be purchased via Tickets Mall.

Egyptian soprano Amira Selim will perform at the National Museum for Egyptian Civilization on Wednesday, 21 June to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the museum’s inauguration. Doors open at 7:30pm and the performance begins at 9:30pm. You can book tickets here.

The French Institute in Egypt is hosting its three-day Grün Fête de la Musique from Thursday, 22 June through to Saturday, 24 June at Al Azhar Park. The events will include discussions about music, as well as awareness workshops on the environment. The doors will open at 3pm, with the discussions set to kick off at 4pm, followed by a lineup of musical performances at 7pm. You can register for the events as of next week, and check out the event website here.

You can catch El Sofara’s Ahmed Amin at the next SoldOut live interview with TV host Mahmoud Saad on Thursday, 23 June at El Falaki theater at 8:30pm. The live interview will be followed by a performance by singer Nouran Abou Taleb. Tickets for both events are available on Tazkarti.

Wegz lovers, this is for you. Do not miss Wegz’s performance in ZED East in New Cairo on Friday, 23 June starting from 10pm. Reserve your place now through Ticketsmarche.

Cairokee Empire returns: Cairokee is hitting the stage with two mega-concerts at New Cairo’s Manara Arena on Thursday, 27 June and Saturday, 29 June. Tickets are available on Tazkarti here and here.

Your brain, explained by Dr. Huberman:The Huberman Lab Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist and professor at Stanford University. The podcast covers a wide range of topics related to neuroscience, including sleep, learning, memory, stress, and much more. He brings his deep knowledge of neuroscience to life in a way that is both engaging and informative. The podcast is a great way to learn more about the inner workings of our brains, or simply to provide content that’s both informative and entertaining.

Box of Sand (Sanduk El Raml) by Aicha Ibrahim uses a smooth, flowing narrative style akin to the Libyan desert from where the events of this Arabic novel take place. The story uses the testimonies of Italian and English journalists during the Italian-Libyan war in 1911, and through it we meet Sandro Compariti, a journalist who traveled to Tripoli with the 84th legion on his way to fight on the front. On his trip he finds Halima, a Tripolitan milk merchant, whom he meets in a desert trench and falls in love with. However, their love is unable to survive the war, as Halima’s mother is killed and she and her younger brother are captured and tortured in the Italian penal colonies after the town of Al Manshiya was captured. Sandro eventually leaves Libya carrying with him the atrocities that he saw during the war and the penal colonies, where innocent girls, women and children were lost without accusation or court hearings. The novel earned a long list nomination for the International Arabic Booker prize this year. You can get your copy on the Abgad app.

What the markets are doing on 15 June, 2023

The EGX30 was essentially flat at today’s close on turnover of EGP 1.91 bn. Foreign investors were net buyers. The index is up 22.5% YTD.

In the green: Credit Agricole (+6.3%), Eastern Company (+3.9%) and Heliopolis Housing (+3.3%).

In the red: Telecom Egypt (-3.1%), Qalaa Holdings (-3.0%) and Juhayna (-2.3%).

The economic cost of a sleep-deprived workforce

You snooze, you gain: Sleep deprivation in a country’s workforce can result in a significant drop in productivity, as well as USD bns in economic losses each year, according to a comparative analysis study conducted by Rand Health Quarterly. The study, which looked at five OECD countries — the US, UK, Japan, Germany, and Canada — studied the effects of sleep deprivation on these countries’ GDPs and labor productivity.

Just how big are the losses we’re talking about? In these five countries alone, the study estimated the economic losses due to people getting insufficient sleep — less than six hours per night — stood at USD 680 bn per year, according to the Rand study.

What’s the consensus on what “enough” sleep is? Adults typically need at least seven hours of sleep per night, with an optimal range of seven to nine hours per 24-hour window, according to the CDC. Consistently sleeping fewer than seven hours per night can lead to reduced productivity, reduced ability to concentrate, slowed response speeds, and lower quality of decisions. Exhibit A: One of the factors that led to the Chernobyl nuclear explosion of 1985 was insufficient sleep, as per the United State’s Senate’s committee on Energy and Natural resources.

Underslept employees are costly for business: Productivity loss among workers getting less than six hours of sleep per night is reportedly 2.4 percentage points higher than among those who get the recommended seven to nine hours, the analysis says. “To put these numbers into perspective, assuming there are 250 working days in a given year, this means that a worker sleeping less than six hours loses around 6 working days due to absenteeism or presenteeism per year more than a worker sleeping seven to nine hours. A person sleeping six to seven hours loses on average about 3.7 working days more per year.”

Let’s put that into monetary terms: For a company of 1k employees in the US, avoiding productivity losses caused by workers not getting enough sleep could save some USD 2.52 mn, according to LYS Technologies.

The situation appears to be most dire in the US, where the percentage of people getting less than six hours per night (18%) is the highest out of the five countries. Japan and the UK each reported 16% of people getting under six hours of sleep per night, while Germany reported 9% and that number falls to 6% in Canada. With the largest labor force of the five countries (121.5 mn full-time workers and 27.3 mn part-time workers), the US is estimated to be losing nearly 10 mn hours (1.23 mn working days) of work productivity every year due to undersleeping. Japan comes in second, with 4.8 mn hours or 600k working days lost.

Critically, these losses compound over time, “even if we assume constant proportions of short sleepers in the future,” the Rand analysis notes. “The overall costs increase slightly in magnitude over time … as the mortality effect of insufficient sleep leads to reductions in the labor supply. That is, the death of a worker does not only affect the year the death occurs, but continues to be a part of the costs in subsequent years because of the loss of all potential future offspring.

What can be done? The study suggests that much of the burden of responsibility falls back on employers: They need to target the obstacles to good sleep and provide their working capital with policies to improve it. Aside from the commonly circulated advice of sleeping in a cool room, no lights, and no noise, certain changes in employees’ lifestyles would go a long way, including imposing a clear cut-off point for answering emails, calls, and work related messages afterwork and during the weekend reduces exposure to electronic devices. Other measures that could prove helpful include helping employees clock the recommended weekly target of 150 minutes of physical activity to improve physical and mental health (ideally by providing access to an in-house gym), as well as keeping the availability of caffeinated and sugary beverages to a minimum.

THE ENTERPRISE ENTERTAINMENT CALENDAR

MAY

27 May-27 June (Saturday-Tuesday): Annual Flower Exhibition from 10am at the Agricultural Museum.

JUNE

14-27 June (Wednesday-Tuesday): Zawya’s two-week festival for Italian director Michelangelo Antonio.

16 June (Friday): Elissa performs at Alex West Club, Alexandria.

16 June (Friday): Composer Hany Shenouda concert, Cairo Festival City’s Marquee theater.

16 June (Friday): Hiba Tawaji concert, Cairo Opera House.

17 June (Saturday): Wall of Sound Records Showcase at 8pm at Cairo Jazz Club.

17 June (Saturday): Standup Comedy Night at 8pm at Elsawy Culturewheel.

17 June (Saturday): Komedy Koshk Vol. 11 at 8:30pm at Room Art Space.

18 June (Sunday): Maestro Eman Gnedy at 8pm, Sawy Culture Wheel.

21 June (Wednesday): Egyptian soprano Amira Selim performance, National Museum for Egyptian Civilization (NMEC).

22-24 June (Thursday-Saturday): Grün Fête de la Musique at 3pm at Al Azhar Park.

23 June (Friday): Ahmed Amin’s interview on SoldOut Live, El Falaki theater.

23 June (Friday): Wegz Live Concert, ZED East, New Cairo.

27 June (Thursday): Cairokee mega-concert, Manara Arena, New Cairo.

29 June (Saturday): Cairokee mega-concert, Manara Arena, New Cairo.

28 June-2 July (Wednesday-Sunday): Eid El Adha (TBC).

30 June (Friday): June 30 Revolution Day.

JULY

18 July (Tuesday): Islamic New Year.

19 July-23 July (Wednesday-Sunday): Egypt Summer Festival, Heliopolis.

20 July (Thursday): National holiday in observance of Islamic New Year (TBC).

23 July (Sunday): Revolution Day.

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

AUGUST

2 August-3 August (Wednesday-Thursday): Fintech Revolution Summit at 9:30am at Cairo Festival City.

SEPTEMBER

26 September (Tuesday): Prophet Muhammad’s birthday (TBC).

28 September (Thursday): National holiday in observance of Prophet Muhammad’s birthday (TBC).

OCTOBER

6 October (Friday): Armed Forces Day.

13 October- 20 October (Friday-Friday): The sixth edition of El Gouna Film Festival (GFF).

EVENTS WITH NO SET DATE

2023: The inauguration of the Grand Egyptian Museum.

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