See the Milky Way above the White Desert

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WHAT WE’RE TRACKING TONIGHT

THIS EVENING: No weight limit on customs exemption for gold imports, Ashmawy says

Happy THURSDAY, friends. We’re just about ready to jump into the weekend after what has been a surprisingly busy week.

We’re only four days away from meeting with some of you at the Enterprise Exports and FDI Forum, taking place at the Four Seasons at the Nile Plaza on Monday, 15 May.

We’re proud to announce that our friend Nada El Ahwal, CSO at Transmar, is joining us for the forum. Are you? Nada El Ahwal is going to be speaking on how industrial clusters can be better leveraged to raise our exports. She is joined on stage for that discussion by Shady William, managing director at IDG, and Mohamed ElGebely, team leader at USAID Trade, to discuss how industrial clusters can be used to better the quality of our exports and become a platform for SMEs to become part of our export-led growth.

Who else is speaking? Among the CEOs, top execs, bankers, and development finance folks speaking at the conference are (in no particular order): Mohamed Talaat Khalifa, CEO of Concrete; Hossam Abou Moussa, partner at Apis; Hassan Massoud, associate director and head of private equity (Southern Mediterranean) at EBRD; Tarek Hosny, head of investments and projects at Fertiglobe; Mark Wyllie, CEO of Beyti; Kareem Abou Ghali, chairman and CEO of Pasta Regina; Hossam Sallab, CEO and vice-chairman of Sallab Group and Royal Ceramica; Tarek Kamel, CEO at Nestle Egypt; Omar Elsahy, general manager of Amazon Egypt; Yasmine Khamis, chair of the Orientals Group, Cheick-Oumar Sylla, director for North Africa and Horn of Africa at IFC; Helmy Ghazi, deputy CEO of HSBC Egypt; Khaled Morsy, CEO at DB Schenker; Nadia El-Tawil, investment officer at AfricInvest; Shams Eweis, corporate affairs director, Egypt, North Africa and Levant at Mars; Mostafa Bedeir, CEO of Giza Seeds and Herbs; Abdallah Sallam, CEO of Madinet Masr; and Yassir Zouaoui, partner at McKinsey.

Topics and live interviews will include:

Why exports and FDI are the way forward and what lessons have worked from around the world;
How to attract foreign partners and figure out what they are looking for;
What lessons can we draw from white goods, fertilizers, and garments exporters who have increased our exports;
What are the fundamentals to creating an export and / or FDI strategy;
What it takes to secure a place in a multinational’s supply chain.
How Egypt’s industries need to be open to evolution to become more competitive.

Tap or click here to explore the full agenda.

** Have you confirmed your attendance? Invitations have been sent out over the past few weeks. If you have yet to confirm your attendance and would still like to join us, please reply to the invitation with an RSVP.

THE BIG STORY TODAY

Gold customs exemption isn’t going to have a weight limit: A decision that allows Egyptians living abroad to import gold to Egypt without paying customs duties for a six-month period will not be limited to gold imports below a certain weight, Assistant Supply Minister Ibrahim Ashmawy told reporters, according to Hapi Journal. Imports of gold coins or ounces also will not be subject to VAT, Ashmawy said, noting that the tax will only be imposed on gold with craftwork. Ashmawy’s statements come after the Madbouly Cabinet signed off on the decision yesterday.

THE BIG STORY ABROAD

It’s a relatively mixed bag of nuts and bolts in the international business press this afternoon, but SoftBank posting a record USD 39 bn loss in its Vision fund is making the rounds. Despite the widening loss in the tech-heavy segment, Softbank narrowed its overall losses after selling down its stake in Alibaba. The story is getting attention this afternoon from Reuters, CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times.

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

TE stake sale to start this week? Government plans to sell a minority stake in Telecom Egypt to investors look to be back on the table.
Wind farms attract investor interest: Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power, the UAE’s Alcazar Energy and our friends at local renewables firm Infinity are reportedly among seven companies interested in acquiring Egypt’s two largest wind farms.
Inflation eased for the first time in 10 months in April thanks to a favorable base effect, the stabilization of the EGP-USD exchange rate, and a slight slowdown in food price growth.

WANT TO START A CAREER IN INVESTOR RELATIONS ADVISORY?Enterprise Advisory (formerly known as Inktank Communications) is looking for smart, talented people to help us tell the stories of exciting companies. Enterprise Advisory is the region’s leading investor relations advisory company and works on investor and strategic communications issues that take you deep inside the c-suite. Our clients are in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and beyond. Egyptian and foreign nationals alike are welcome to apply.

NEVER WORKED IN INVESTOR RELATIONS OR ADVISORY BEFORE? We have the Enterprise Advisory Development Program. The four-month program will see full-time, paid participants take part in workshops and lectures from veteran investor relations and advisory professionals, while also applying their knowledge in a practical setting. Those who successfully complete the program will be offered full-time positions on staff for a chance to work in a flexible and supportive — but still fast-paced — work environment that eschews micromanagement and rewards good work. Enterprise Advisory offers the chance to build a network of high-ranking individuals across some of the largest and most influential companies in the region through direct exposure to clients.

During the program, you’ll learn:

Finance for non-finance people;
How to analyze businesses, their business models, their strategic advantages, and their strategies;
How to take that information and then tell an audience of investors, journalists, and analysts a compelling and well-developed story;
How to frame individual companies’ stories within the wider macroeconomic environment.

Career switchers are very welcome.

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

☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- The weekend is set to be pleasantly warm and sunny, bringing us daytime highs of 32°C tomorrow and Saturday, with nighttime lows of 16°C on both days, our favorite weather app suggests.

A stunning image of the Milky Way above Egypt’s White Desert + Coldwell Banker launches Meta Egypt to make virtual house hunting a lot easier

IMAGE OF THE DAY- The central band of the Milky Way in Egypt’s White Desert: NASA’s Astronomy picture of the dayyesterday featured a captivating image of the Milky Way Galaxy shot by Amr Abdulwahab in Egypt’s White Desert National Park. The image took three days to create by capturing composite images “with the same camera and from the same location,” with Abdulwahab enlisting the help of “an even more experienced astrophotographer,” NASA notes.

House hunting in Egypt is about to get a lot easier: Our friends at Coldwell Banker Egypt launched Meta Egypt — a new virtual reality real estate platform that makes it possible to virtually scout out properties — with Estate waves, according to a statement (pdf). The EGP 150 bn metaverse-based platform currently has 450 real estate projects and over 30k residential, commercial, and administrative units from 100 real estate development firms across the country. The platform will also provide services seeing consumers meet up with real estate development companies, markets, finishing and interior design firms as well as real estate financing institutions and banks.

Should Apple be bending over backwards for foldable phones? It’s currently the only global smartphone brand currently without a foldable device in its portfolio, says Bloomberg. Google launched the Pixel Fold this week and Samsung has already sent to market several iterations of their Galaxy Z — choose from the Fold or Flip. So, with folding phones currently commanding higher prices, opening the door to new features and helping lower-tier brands step up into the premium range, is Apple slow to enter a promising market?

iSheep could be queueing up for a foldable Apple product soon: As the dominant smartphone manufacturer, Apple has the power to make or break the future foldables industry, says Neil Mawston, research director at Strategy Analytics. The brand has reportedly been working on a foldable product for several years and is known to favor entering an established category with a more polished product. Yet, they have been too slow on the uptake say analysts. “It is unthinkable that Apple has not been experimenting with flexible display technology in its product development labs for a decade or more,” said CCS Insight analyst Ben Wood.

Twin gynecologists with different personalities and moral compasses chase funding for a lucrative project

? ON THE TUBE TONIGHT-
(all times CLT)

Dead Ringers: An adaptation of an adaptation. Dead Ringers starring Rachel Weisz is a remake of David Cronenberg’s 1988 film of the same name — which was also adapted from a 1977 novel, Twins. The story follows Beverly and Elliot Mantle (both played by Weisz), twin gynecologists who use the fact that they are identical and nobody can tell them apart to their advantage. In the mini-series, the Mantle twins are planning to open a lucrative, high-tech birthing center, for which they need funding. Their work to secure financing highlights the inherent differences between the two twins, with one of them typically warmer and on firmer moral ground, while the other is more icy and willing to bend moral rules (although arguably more intelligent). You can watch Dead Ringers on Amazon Prime.

The Premier League returns on Saturday, when Leeds United hosts Newcastle at 2:30pm as it scrambles for a chance to avoid relegation. Nottingham will also be hosted by Chelsea at 5pm, with Nottingham hoping to improve its standing in the league and also avoid relegation. Also at 5pm on Saturday: Southampton v Fulham, Aston Villa v Tottenham, Manchester United v Wolverhampton, and Crystal Palace v Bournemouth.

In the other European leagues on Saturday:

Spezia v Milan (Serie A — 7pm)
Inter v Sassuolo (Serie A — 9:45pm)
Bayern Munich v Schalke (Bundesliga — 4:30pm)
Dortmund v Borussia Mönchengladbach (Bundesliga — 7:30pm)
Real Madrid v Getafe (La Liga — 10pm)

Red Copper gets points on taste, presentation, and variety of options: Located in East Cairo’s W51 Mall on Street 90, we first tried out Red Copper during Ramadan for sohour, which offered set menus of oriental, “fellahi,” or Lebanese options — and all were delicious. Red Copper’s non-Ramadan menus don’t disappoint either, with plenty of options for everyone. We particularly enjoyed the bisque shrimp pasta as well as the cordon bleu. Their surf and turf platter — which includes beef filet, salmon, shrimp, and seafood pasta with caviar salmon sauce — hit the spot. Food aside, our favorite part was the vibe: Warm lights and live music really tied everything together.

Dive into Egypt’s infinitely rich contemporary art world: The “Traces of Egypt” Exhibition began in late March and will continue until Thursday, 15 June, at the Grand Egyptian Museum. The exhibit is organized by Egyptian-German artist Susan Hefuna and celebrates the country’s Khayamiya tradition through 28 dresses celebrating local artisans and their craftsmanship.

Expressionist depiction of Egypt’s rural communities: Artist Omar Abdel Zaher’s latest art exhibition, Roots, opened at Safarkhan Art Gallery last week and runs through Wednesday, 24 May. The exhibition is “a sincere, impassioned exploration and meditation on the modest and down-to-earth sanctities of Egypt’s rural communities.”

Back to the Cairo Opera House: Egypt’s iconic Omar Khairat will be performing next Wednesday, 10 and Thursday 11 May, starting 8pm. The concerts are expected to run through until 11pm at the historical venue’s Main Hall.

Who else has a 40-year roster of songs to choose from at a concert? Catch Amr Diabperforming some of his biggest hits — old and new — at AUC on Friday, 12 May. Tickets are available through Tazkarti.

Start training for your next half marathon: The TriFactory is hosting another edition of itsMadinaty Half Marathon on Friday, 9 June at Madinaty. You can sign up for the event through the TriFactory website.

A unique fall from grace: Few people’s lives lurch from a glamorous entrance to society as a debutante, acting as a spokesperson for a white supremacist group responsible for the Oklahoma bombings, and ending as a government informant — probably why former Tulsa socialite Carol Howe is the focus of Jon Ronson’s newest podcast, The Debutante. The unlikely turns of Howe’s life, often led by very bad life choices, saw her spy on Oklahoma’s neo-Nazis on behalf of the US government at the time when the group blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168. Howe has remained in the memories of the survivors and investigators of the attack, buoyed by rumors regarding her involvement. In his latest podcast Ronson, known for his shrewd, funny and fresh take on reporting, questions if Howe could have prevented the act of domestic terror on US soil.

The Sea Elephants tells the story of Shagun, a misfit growing up in 1990s India. After a double tragedy that tears his family apart, the young man tries to outrun the collective grief and guilt that come from the unexpected death. His pain is compounded by the shame his father has instilled in him for straying from a mold he is expected to fit into. But the validation and acceptance his hope to find in a boys’ boarding school is nowhere to be found and Shagun finds himself on the run again. This time, he ends up with a theater troupe that brings to life the Hindu characters he learned about in his childhood. But even among those with whom he belongs, the protagonist finds he cannot outrun the fears and thoughts that shaped him throughout his life — including the haunting terror of being sent to a conversion center by his perpetually disappointed father.

What the markets are doing on 11 May, 2023

The EGX30 fell 1.3% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 2.11 bn. Foreign investors were net sellers. The index is up 18.3% YTD.

In the green: Cleopatra Hospitals (+4.3%), Credit Agricole Egypt (+2.8%) and Rameda Pharma (+2.3%).

In the red: E-finance (-2.9%), Sidi Kerir Petrochemicals (-1.1%) and Elsewedy Electric (-2.3%).

In a wellbeing economy, a good life doesn’t have to cost the earth

An economy that prioritizes quality of life sounds radical and even a little naive, but that’s the premise of a Wellbeing Economy — an economy designed to serve people and the planet, not the other way around. In a Wellbeing Economy, the rules, norms and incentives are set up to deliver quality of life and flourishing for all people by default, ensuring that everyone has enough to live in comfort, safety and happiness, says the Wellbeing Economy Alliance.

The rules and institutions that shape our economy have been designed by people — so, we can redesign them in favor of people and the planet, says the New Economics Foundation, a UK-based think-tank that promotes social, economic, and environmental justice. The NEF wants to transform the economy to make it work for people and the planet, supporting practices like co-production, local money flow analysis, social return on investment, ethical investment and social auditing and establishing a range of organizations to spread its work.

Our current headline indicator of economic progress is GDP, but decouples growth from sustainability, says NEF CEO Miatta Fahnbulleh (listen; runtime: 1:19). Developed during the second world war, GDP has become the title measure in a complex system of national accounts overseen by the UN. This is despite the fact that when it was first introduced in 1953, GDP accounts were motivated in part by the need to determine how much governments could afford to spend on the war effort, professors at Imperial College London, Cambridge University, and Surrey University wrote in the Conversation.

Out of touch? GDP measurements can incorporate many of the “bads” that detract from our quality of life — war, pollution, crime, traffic congestion, and natural disasters — and can have a positive impact on GDP, according to the professors. The pursuit of GDP as a policy goal increases devastation of the natural world and climate and near melt-downs of global financial markets, while ignoring the technological transformations of society.

It is time to “shift emphasis from measuring economic production to measuring people’s wellbeing,” says a report by Joseph Stiglitz, Amartya Sen and Jean-Paul Fitoussi, the chairs of the OECD’s Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (CMPEPS), which gave way to a global conversation on the limits of GDP as a welfare metric. Concentrating on the wrong indicators meant that governments make inadequate policy choices, with severe and long-lasting consequences, such as the 2008 financial crisis, according to a separate study by Stiglizt, Fitoussi and Martine Durand, co-chair of the CMPEPS High Level Expert Group.

GDP remains a valid tool for macroeconomic analysis, the economists say, but a Wellbeing Economy could serve as an arbiter of social progress, reflecting people’s lives and experiences. Still driven by growth, the new economic model does so by putting socio-economic benefits first. Strategies range from reducing less-necessary production, improving public services, introducing a green jobs guarantee, reducing work time to enabling sustainable development, suggest a piece from various authors in Nature.

Case study: Scotland: The country’s recently appointed First Minister Humza Yousaf tweeted that the Scottish government’s priorities will include “eradicating child poverty and delivering a wellbeing economy” and put in place the first Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy, Neil Gray. Under former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish government put out the National Strategy for Economic Transformation, in which the next decade of economic policy will follow an overarching objective of building a wellbeing economy.

Scotland was a founding member of the Wellbeing Economy Governments partnership(WEGo), alongside Iceland and New Zealand. Finland, Canada and Wales are recent additions (and many Scandinavian countries are already making similar moves, says The National. The partnership aims to “share expertise and transferrable policy practices to advance [members’] shared ambition of building wellbeing economies” and operates through “policy labs” — forums where government officials can exchange expertise on relevant policy issues.

Put into practice: Social enterprises and businesses owned by workers, businesses using more localized supply chains, ethical banking models that prioritize environmentally friendly investments, and participatory budgeting from governments, are all examples of a Wellbeing Economy in practice, says the Scottish Parliament. Advocates of the system suggest investment in the “four capitals” — human capital, social capital, financial capital and natural capital, which are needed to enhance human wellbeing now and in the future.

How will it be measured? Scotland has the Wellbeing Economy Monitor, a benchmark against which success can be measured; including fewer preventable deaths, a shrinking gender pay gap, higher investment (measured by gross fixed capital formation as a percentage of GDP) and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. GDP growth, productivity or average wages are not mentioned.

The Happy Planet Index measures sustainable wellbeing on a country-by-country basis, ranking how efficiently nations deliver “long, happy lives using our limited environmental resources.” The index is calculated (pdf) using a given country’s average life expectancy, experienced wellbeing and ecological footprint, using data collected over a 15-year time period.

Egypt has a current score of 43.2, ranking us 86 out of 152 countries. We have an average life expectancy of 72 years in a population of more than 100 mn, an experienced wellbeing of 4.33 out of 10 and an ecological footprint of 1.67 global hectare per capita (gha/p). According to the HPI’s data, Egyptians were happiest in 2007, when our HPI score hit 49.5. Interestingly, in the 15 years of data collection, our ecological footprint has barely wavered, bouncing between 1.74 and 1.93 gha/p.

Calculate your own wellbeing economy: The UK Office of Science commissioned the HPI to identify what are the key drivers of personal wellbeing, leading to The Five Ways to Wellbeing: Connect, Be Active, Take Notice, Keep Learning, Give. Each is an evidence-based positive action. Based on these key pillars, the HPI developed the Five Ways test to determine where individuals’ personal happiness might be falling short.

CALENDAR

MAY

May: The sixth edition of Cairo Cinema Days at Zaywa Cinema.

6-20 May (Saturday-Saturday): Cairo Film Society Festival for Egyptian Cinema at the Artistic Creativity Center at the Cairo Opera House.

11-13 May (Thursday-Saturday): Sandbox Festival at El Gouna.

12 May (Friday): Amr Diab concert at 7pm at AUC.

12-15 May (Friday-Monday): Cairo Fashion Week at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir.

13 May (Saturday): Annual Flower Exhibition from 10am at the Orman Garden.

15 May (Monday): Last day to register for TriFactory’s Somabay Endurance Festival.

24 May (Wednesday): Last day of Omar Abdel Zaher’s Roots exhibition at the Safarkhan Art Gallery.

25-27 May (Thursday-Saturday): TriFactory’s Somabay Endurance Festival.

JUNE

9 June (Friday): TriFactory Madinaty Half Marathon.

10 June (Saturday): Thanaweya Amma examinations begin.

15 June (Thursday): Last day of the Traces of Egypt Exhibition at the Grand Egyptian Museum.

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

30 June (Friday): June 30 Revolution Day.

JULY

18 July (Tuesday): Islamic New Year.

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.

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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