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Good morning, wonderful people, and happy Monday. We bring you another busy morning — proof, we think, that there will be no Ramadan news slowdown in 2023.
THE BIG STORIES HERE AT HOME have a distinctly Gulf flavor this morning:
#1- El Sisi and MbS shared suhoor this morning: President Abdel Fatth El Sisi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sat down for suhoor after El Sisi landed in Jeddah this morning, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reports. The pair discussed enhancing bilateral relations, the SPA said, without giving further details. Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel was also in attendance.
REMEMBER- El Sisi’s trip comes as Cairo seeks to secure USD bns in FDI from Riyadh against the backdrop of a major diplomatic realignment in the region. Reuters also took note of the visit. Riyadh and Cairo have been working to ease tensions in the region including by improving ties with Syria and Turkey and (in Riyadh’s case) showing signs it could bring Iran in from the cold.
#2- And is there new Gulf M&A in the works? A local subsidiary of Kuwait’s largest insurer Gig is on track to acquire a competitor, and local media is reporting that the UAE’s Aldar is eyeing Heliopolis Housing’s Heliopark project. We have the rundown on both stories in the news well, below.
** SO, WHEN DO WE EAT? We’ll be breaking our fasts at 6:14pm CLT today. You have until 4:14am tomorrow morning to hydrate and grab a bite to eat.
HAPPENING TODAY-
The House of Representatives is back in session again today after giving an initial nod yesterday a bill prohibiting fake weather reports yesterday (more on that in Also On Our Radar.)
MPs will vote today on the proposed return of daylight saving time, which would see Cairo Local Time (CLT) pushed forward by one hour from the last Friday of April through to the last Thursday of October.
More oil FDI? The House will discuss and vote on four bills allowing the Oil Ministry to sign exploration agreements with foreign oil and gas companies. Ukrainian state-owned Naftagas Ukrayinyis looking to drill for oil in the Western Desert, while Eni subsidiary IEOC wants to launch oil and gas exploration at three East Mediterranean concessions, one in partnership with BP, one with state-owned EGAS, and one alone.
WATCH THIS SPACE?- The Tourism committee will discuss today the closure of the Shepheard Hotel in Downtown Cairo (hello, privatization program?), while a USAID grant on economic governance is up for debate in the Social Solidarity Committee.
It’s a brand new month. Here are some economic indicators to look out for:
- PMI: S&P Global will release Egypt’s PMI figures on Tuesday, 4 April;
- Foreign reserves: Expect the central bank to publish March’s foreign reserves figures before the end of this week;
- Inflation: The CBE and Capmas will be out with March inflation data on Monday, 10 April.
HAPPENING THIS WEEK-
The World Bank will release its latest MENA Economic Update on Thursday: Ominously titled “Altered Destinies,” the multilateral lender’s latest regional growth report will look “in depth at how even temporary increases in the price of food can have lasting impacts across generations in terms of education, health and future income prospects.” The World Bank downgraded Egypt’s GDP growth forecast for the current fiscal year by 0.2 percentage points to 4.8% in its most recent update in October.
THE BIG STORY ABROAD-
OPEC+ shocks markets with a surprise oil production cut: The oil cartel moved to cut more than 1.1 mn barrels per day starting next month, defying expectations that it would stick to a pledge to hold output steady through the end of 2023. Saudi Arabia led the herd, pledging a daily 500k-barrel cut, followed by the UAE, Kuwait, Iraq, and Algeria, while Russia will extend for the rest of the year cuts it introduced in retaliation for Western sanctions.The oil cuts came a day before the OPEC+ ministerial panel was set to meet — and ran counter to suggestions from delegates as recently as Friday that the cartel would stay the course, Bloomberg reports.
The move could spur yet more inflation across global economies,the business newswire notes. Oil futures spiked as much at 8% on today’s open. Brent crude closed at around USD 80 on Friday, staging a partial recovery from a 15-month low on March’s banking crisis — but reports have suggested OPEC wants prices to settle as high as USD 90. “OPEC+ clearly want a higher price … [it] is following through on being proactive and ahead of the curve,” oil consultant Gary Ross told the business news service.
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THE REALIGNMENT-
Syria’s Assad to attend the upcoming Arab League summit? Saudi Foreign MinisterFaisal bin Farhan will reportedly travel to Damascus within weeks to hand President Bashar Al Assad a formal invitation to attend the Arab League summit scheduled for 19 May in Riyadh, Reuters reports, citing two unnamed sources it says are familiar with the plans. The news outlet reported last week that Saudi Arabia and Syria have agreed to restore diplomatic ties and reopen embassies after more than a decade of hostilities. KSA and Egypt have reportedly been working with Syria on steps to rejoin the 22-member club.
REMEMBER- The latest indications are that we too could soon restore ties with Syria. Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad made his first official visit to Cairo in more than a decade earlier this week.
MEANWHILE- Israel is intensifying airstrikes on Syria: The Israeli military hit targets in Syria for the third time in four days yesterday, with the Syrian defense ministry and Western intelligence sources offering different claims about where the attacks took place. (Reuters)
MORNING MUST READ-
Who owns the art that AI makes? US graphic novelist Kris Kashtanova is looking for an answer to that question in a high-profile copyright case, Reuters reports. Kashtanova managed to secure the rights to a first graphic novel produced by feeding prompts such as “Sci-fi scene future empty New York" into Midjourney, a ChatGPT-like AI tool that creates images from text. But that decision was overturned when the US copyright office said Kashtanova’s novel was “not the product of human authorship.” Now the artist is trying to copyright a second book that they say was made with more human input.
This is more than just a philosophical conundrum: The case could help determine who owns the work produced by AI — the AI itself, the companies that developed it, its users, or… nobody at all. The ruling could potentially set a precedent for USD bns worth of material these new tools could generate in the years to come.
Missed this week’s Inside Industry? In our weekly vertical exploring all things industry and manufacturing, we looked at how our tire industry is in sore need of development.
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*** It’s Blackboard day: We have our weekly look at the business of education in Egypt, from pre-K through the highest reaches of higher ed.
In today’s issue: Private and international schools are doing away with the “locked fee” business model as the EGP devaluation and red-hot inflation lay bare its financial flaws.
