{"id":555967,"date":"2021-10-05T04:00:37","date_gmt":"2021-10-05T04:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/egypt\/2021\/10\/05\/this-morning-senate-convenes-today-for-new-season-brent-hits-a-three-year-high-and-aramco-seems-to-want-to-send-it-even-higher\/"},"modified":"2021-10-05T04:00:37","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T04:00:37","slug":"this-morning-senate-convenes-today-for-new-season-brent-hits-a-three-year-high-and-aramco-seems-to-want-to-send-it-even-higher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/egypt\/2021\/10\/05\/this-morning-senate-convenes-today-for-new-season-brent-hits-a-three-year-high-and-aramco-seems-to-want-to-send-it-even-higher\/","title":{"rendered":"THIS MORNING: Senate convenes today for new season + Brent hits a three-year high \u2014 and Aramco seems to want to send it even higher"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning, wonderful people, and welcome to the next-to-last business day of the <\/strong>week. <\/strong>We hope you\u2019re looking forward to a productive workday \u2014 and to a well-deserved long weekend.<\/p>\n

<\/a> Have you recovered from your forced social media detox last night? <\/strong>WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram are all back online after crashing at around 6pm CLT in an outage that lasted until nearly 1am. The glitch that hit Facebook\u2019s consumer apps also took down its internal comms systems. Word over on Twitter (where the memes exploded last night<\/a>) was that someone inside the company somehow messed up DNS records. The outage comes as Facebook continues to face questions after the Wall Street Journal\u2019s multipart takedown of the company\u2019s business practices in The Facebook Files<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re very tempted to be ostriches this morning<\/strong> and just bury our heads in a (metaphorical) hole for the rest of the day, claiming that our WhatsApp is still mysteriously down.<\/p>\n

THE BIG STORIES THIS MORNING <\/strong>has to be the spate of private equity investment news coming out of DPI and EFG Hermes. Throw in recent fundraising successes by firms including Ezdehar<\/a> and Lorax<\/a> and it\u2019s enough to make you wonder whether private equity is making a comeback as an asset class <\/strong>in Egypt and Africa after years in the wilderness following the implosion of Abraaj.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll also want to check out Also on our Radar this morning<\/strong> for fast rundowns on the CBE\u2019s September reserves report, the latest on taxing social media creators and influencers, and our new ambassador to Ethiopia, among other stories.<\/p>\n

HAPPENING TODAY- <\/strong><\/p>\n

The Senate begins its new legislative session <\/strong>following the end of its summer recess. This comes four days after the House kicked off<\/a> a new legislative session over the weekend with a raft of business-relevant legislation<\/a> to chew over in the coming months. Officials have yet to provide a look a the Senate\u2019s legislative agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cDaddy, what\u2019s the Senate?\u201d <\/strong>To paraphrase a 1980s advert: It\u2019s \u201ca question a child might ask,<\/a>but not a childish question<\/a>.\u201d Fully 200 members were elected in 2020 (turnout was just over 14%) and 100 more appointed by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi. Senate votes are required<\/a> on some matters of foreign affairs (treaties, alliances and sovereignty) as well as any proposed amendments to the constitution. It may also offer opinions on matters \u201creferred to it by the president\u201d or, in some cases, the House. Here\u2019s who was in charge of Senate committees<\/a> as of March 2021.<\/p>\n

A preparatory conference for the Intra-African Trade Fair 2021<\/strong> \u2014 which is scheduled to kick<\/a> off<\/a> in South Africa in mid-November \u2014 is being hosted today by the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) at the Westin Cairo Golf Resort & Spa. Here\u2019s the day\u2019s agenda (pdf)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

HAPPENING THIS WEEK- The House Planning and Budgeting Committee will hold a <\/strong>series of 10 meetings to<\/strong> finalize the government\u2019s draft unified budget act<\/strong>, according to Al Mal<\/a>. The meetings start this week and run into next. The bill proposes merging legislation governing the state\u2019s annual budget and government accountability into a new act that erases overlap between different pieces of legislation. If passed, the bill would require the government to present a medium-term budgetary and fiscal strategy to the House of Representatives every year. We have more on the proposed law, along with everything else likely to be on legislators\u2019 agendas during the new parliamentary session, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

SMART POLICY- Commuters can now purchase Metro passes online through <\/strong>this<\/a><\/strong>website<\/a><\/strong>, which operator RATP launched yesterday, according to a press release (pdf)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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THE BIG STORY ABROAD on this fine morning: The price of oil in the US hit a seven-year <\/strong>high yesterday <\/strong>after OPEC and its allies opted against raising output by more than they had originally agreed in June. The cartel made the decision at a meeting yesterday, agreeing that it will continue to lift its combined output by 400k barrels per day each month until supply is restored to its pre-pandemic levels.<\/p>\n

Brent crude, the international benchmark, hit a three-year high<\/strong>, advancing to USD 81.26, a gain of 2.5%. The story is everywhere in the global business press, from the Financial Times<\/a> and Reuters<\/a> to Bloomberg<\/a> and the Wall Street Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Could prices go even higher? <\/strong>That seems to be the contention of Saudi Aramco<\/a> (not that it has a dog in that fight\u2026) which said yesterday that the world\u2019s brewing \u201cnatural-gas crisis was already boosting oil demand.\u201d<\/p>\n

** IN CASE YOU MISSED IT<\/strong>\u2013 Stories from yesterday\u2019s edition of EnterprisePM<\/strong>:<\/p>\n