Euromoney Day Two: Euromoney’s final day began with a keynote speech by Trade and Industry Minister Tarek Kabil, who touched on everything from his view on devaluation — he expects a free float,which he believes would help boost exports by 10% and limit imports — to other structural issues such as the need to expand industry and focus on exporting to Africa.

Kabil also acknowledged at the conference that two US companies submitted an official complaint to his ministry on goods exported from Egypt not meeting US standards, DNE reported. Being an SME ourselves, we also attended yesterday’s panel on small businesses — and were unsurprised to find the panel included exactly one SME business out of five participants. Tap here to read our quick wrap-up of yesterday (including Kabil and the SME panel), which also has links to our audio bootlegs of Monday’s sessions featuring Finance Minister Amr El Garhy, International Cooperation Minister Sahar Nasr, and CI Capital’s Tarek Tantawy.

In an interview with Reuters Arabic, Kabil once again supported the exporters registry, which continues to be attacked by the EU, stating that the move was meant to ensure quality of imports coming into Egypt.

Also at Euromoney: SODIC was selected as “Best Residential Developer” and “Best Office / Business Developer” in Egypt in 2016 by Euromoney Awards. It’s the fifth Euromoney award for the developer. You can read the full press release here.

Interest rate watch: The Amreeka edition. The US Federal Reserve’s FOMC will wrap its two-day meeting today and should announce at c. 2pm Eastern (8pm CLT) whether it will raise interest rates. A Reuters poll of economists expects no hike today — and adds that Fed policymakers will probably also “again cut their forecasts for how high interest rates will need to go in an economy where output, productivity and inflation are growing at a slower pace than in past decades.” Why do we care so much about US interest rates? For starters, no rate hike is, generally speaking, good news for emerging markets: Low rates sent investors out of the US in search of yield in the first place; higher rates will pull the more risk averse of them back to US shorts. The FOMC made clear at the time that as many as four rate hikes could take place in 2016, and that clearly hasn’t happened. The New York Times has a solid (and interesting) explainer headlined “Why Raising Interest Rates Has Been Such a Tough Call for the Fed.” The Fed last raised rates in December 2015, its first hike since 2006.

Interest rate watch: The Egypt edition. The Central Bank of Egypt’s Monetary Policy Committee will set interest rates on Thursday. All 12 participants in Reuters’ poll of analysts expect a rate hike ranging between 50 bps to 200 bps, with seven expecting a 100 bps rise. Pharos Holding expects a 100 bps increase in policy rates, “mostly due to inflationary concerns and in preparation for devaluation.” Arqaam’s Reham El Desoki, who also expects a 100 bps hike, believes a hike is “within the CBE’s inflation targeting regime” and will attract investment for the household sector and foreign investors. Beltone’s Hany Genena, however, expects a 200 bps rate hike as he reckons a flotation of the EGP is likely to happen by 6 October “maximum.” EFG Hermes expects a 50 bps hike on Thursday on the back of the fast-track implementation of the VAT, saying, “Anecdotal evidence suggests businesses have in many cases implemented the tax already. Fast-track implementation comes after tobacco prices rose by an average of 20% a few days ago and electricity prices rose by 50% on average in late August therefore warranting a policy rate hike, in our view.”

Trading in Domty’s global depository receipts begins today, Al Borsa reports. As we noted previously, Domty shareholders can converts up to 21.67% of the company’s current outstanding share capital to GDRs (based on Domty’ current free float of c. 43%), under updated EGX regs. Domty’s GDR page is online here.

El-Sisi’s visit to New York continues: Following his address to the United Nations General Assembly yesterday, President Abdelfattah El Sisi will head a climate change committee with African leaders today on the sidelines of the 71st UN General Assembly meeting, Minister of Environment Khaled Fahmy told Al Mal. El Sisi is also scheduled to attend a UN Security Council summit addressing Middle East developments, particularly Syria and Libya. We have more on El Sisi’s address to the UNGA and his meetings in Speed Round.