EnterprisePM — The EGX was the second most active Arab bourse in 2020

Good afternoon, everyone, and if you’re all Ever Given out, then you’re just as confused as us.

HAPPENING NOW- Heavy winds have apparently blown the Ever Given back to where it was, after having been partially refloated this morning. We have the latest updates in this afternoon’s Speed Round below.

THE STORY IS STILL EVOLVING- With reports right during dispatch indicating that the ship is moving again.

THE BIG NEWS STORY at home (that doesn’t require catching up on water density equations) has to be the EGX being ranked as the second most active market in the Arab World by volume after the Tadawol, with some USD 43.9 bn-worth of equities changing hands, according to the latest report by Arab Federation of Exchanges. The lack of IPOs, however, is really starting to show. You can catch the highlights from the report in this afternoon’s Go With The Flow.

CATCH UP QUICK on the top stories from this morning’s issue of EnterpriseAM:

• Covid Watch: Thousands more doses of China’s Sinopharm vaccine will arrive in the coming days.
• IPO Watch: Macro Group Pharma has priced its shares at EGP 5.30-6.15 apiece ahead of debuting on the EGX next month.
• Politics Watch: MPs want greater oversight of the government's plans to upgrade the nation’s rail network following the train crash in Sohag on Friday that killed at least 19 people and injured 185 others.

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It’s day one of Abu Dhabi’s play for a new oil benchmark: Traders began buying and selling futures contracts for Murban crude in Abu Dhabi this morning, marking the first time an Arabian Gulf OPEC member has allowed its oil to be sold and shipped anywhere in the world, reports Bloomberg. On its first trading day, June contracts were switching hands at a price of USD 63.93 at 4pm UAE time with over 6.3k lots traded, Intercontinental Exchange said on Twitter.

Abu Dhabi hopes that the futures will become the region’s main benchmark and open the local oil sector to financial traders. The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) pledged to guarantee at least 1 mn barrels of daily exports to support trading on the platform ICE Futures Abu Dhabi. ADNOC CEO Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber will ring the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange today to mark the occasion alongside ICE chairman and CEO Jeff Sprecher.

MANDATORY COVID STORY- A lab leak being the origin of covid-19 is “extremely unlikely,” according to a draft report by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Chinese government obtained by the Associated Press. The study instead says that the spread of the virus from bats to humans through another animal is “likely to very likely” to be the cause, while direct transmission from bats is “likely.” Spread through cold-chain food products was “possible but not likely.” The report provides “little new insight” into the origins of the virus and “leaves many questions answered,” though it does offer details on the reasoning behind the team’s conclusions, the AP writes. The publishing of the report has been postponed several times, fuelling speculation that China has tried to influence its findings. The final report is expected to be released in full in the coming days.

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???? CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

The Egyptian-Croatian Business Forum meets on Wednesday for the first time

since 2010. On the table: Giving a nudge to both trade and investment, a FEDCOC statement says. Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlić-Radman and Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry are expected to attend.

The Arab Federation of Exchanges Annual Conference 2021 is taking place today and tomorrow. This year’s virtual conference will discuss ESGs for economic growth and capital markets as well as fintech and innovation.

The HVAC-R Egypt Expo will run Thursday through Saturday at the Egypt International Exhibition Center in New Cairo. The fifth annual expo for heating, ventilation, air conditioning, refrigeration, and energy and brings together more than 170 national and international operators with different suppliers.

The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization will open on Saturday, 3 April in El Fustat. Local and international visitors alike will pay less for admission for the first two weeks to explore the museum’s central hall, according to a cabinet statement. Meanwhile, the Royal Mummies Hall will be ready for visitors starting 18 April.

The Spring Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank Group is set to take place from 5-11 April. This year’s virtual meetings will bring together central bankers, ministers of finance and development, private sector executives, representatives from civil society organizations and academics. The topics up for discussion include the world economic outlook, poverty eradication, economic development, aid effectiveness, and the global financial system. Some events will be open to the public and can be streamed live from the World Bank’s platform.

The Spring Flowers Exhibit (Ma3rad El Zohoor) is currently taking place at Orman Botanical Garden in Giza. More than 200 exhibitors have set up shop to sell flowers, plants, agricultural products, and gardening equipment. The exhibit runs through 13 April.

AUC Press’ Mad March book sale will wrap up by the end of the month. The sale is open to the general public every day from 10am–6pm CLT at AUC Tahrir Bookstore & Garden.

???? FOR YOUR COMMUTE-

Facebook and Google are planning two new subsea cables to connect North America to Indonesia, with the aim of increasing subsea capacity in the trans-pacific by 70%, sources at Facebook told Reuters. The size of the investment was not specified. The Echo cable is being built in partnership with Google and is set to be completed in 2023. The Bifrost cable will be completed in 2024 in partnership with Indonesian and Singaporean operators.

Closer to home, Facebook and Telecom Egypt are building the 2Africa submarine cable project along with five other companies. The 2Africa project is part of the bigger Hybrid African Ring Path (Harp) subsea system. Harp will form two main arteries that will begin from a landing point in South Africa to points in three southern European countries, travelling along the eastern and western African coasts. TE is set to complete Harp in 2023.

Pay attention oil execs: Shell wants to link its director’s incentive plan to climate performance more closely. The oil giant is proposing making its energy transition performance 20% of the director’s incentive plan, Reuters reports. The move, if approved at the 2021 AGM on May 18, would place the energy transition metric on equal footing as cashflow generation for the director’s remuneration. Shell had previously said it is linking the remuneration of 16,500 employees to carbon emission targets, as part of its plan to become net carbon neutral by 2050. Shell’s total carbon emission peaked in 2018 at 1.7 gigatonnes per annum.

Fake meat gets some serious funding: In other ESG news, Plant-based meat manufacturer Livekindly Collective raised USD 335 mn to finance expansion in the US and China, Bloomberg reports. The funding round makes the Livekindly Collective one of the three highest funded plant-based food companies. The alternative protein industry is projected to swell up to a quarter of the global meat market by 2040, while alternative protein investments tripled to USD 3.1 bn last year from USD 1 bn in 2019.

???? ON THE TUBE TONIGHT-

Egypt is playing against Comoros today at 6pm CLT in the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) qualifiers to determine who tops Group G. The Pharaohs ended its Thursday match against Kenya with a 1-1 draw. Afcon will take place in January and February next year in Cameroon.

???? EAT THIS TONIGHT-

Office favorite #2657 (we promise we do more than eat). Lucille’s is Enterprise and Inktank’s go-to restaurant when having an office-wide lunch, with employees always ready for their huge, juicy burger patties on a fluffy, sweet and slightly toasted bun. In fact, back in 2007 Time Magazine crowned Lucille’s as The World's Best Hamburger. We love their mushroom burger and western bbq bacon burger. Make sure to order an appetizer or two to go with your sandwich — you can’t go wrong with any of them. Lucille’s was opened in 1996 by American Lucille who put every penny into launching the restaurant in Maadi. Today, you can also find Lucille’s in New Cairo around the banks center.

???? OUT AND ABOUT-

(All times in CLT)

The French Institute in Cairo is showing the 1963 film ‘Umm Al Aroussa’ by Atef Salem today as part of an ongoing series of monthly events titled Egyptian Society in Cinema. The film will be screened at the Downtown branch at 6pm.

There’s another Paint and Sip Session tomorrow at 6pm at Ora Restobar in New Cairo, possibly Brush It’s last event before Ramadan heads in.

Fabrica Musical Theatre Company is performing Broadway Bel Arabi this Thursday at The Zamalek Theater. Fabrica’s singers will perform translated scenes from Chicago, Fiddler on the Roof, Shrek, Into the Woods, Les Miserables, and more. The event will take place at 8pm and the dress code is ‘dress to impress’.

Beloved Lebanese singer Majida El Roumi is singing at Qubba Palace this Friday in what will be the palace’s first concert to the public. El Roumi will be joined by the maestro Nader Abbassi and the Philharmony Union Orchestra. You can buy tickets for the event here.

???? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

The challenges of a CEO include everything from unforgiving demand to loneliness to responsibility, something Adam Bryant and Kevin Sharer understood when writing The CEO Test: Master the Challenges That Make or Break All Leaders. The book is an authoritative, no-nonsense insider's guide to navigating leadership's hardships written through personal experience as well as interviews with over 600 CEOs. You can check out this review by Ladders, which writes “The CEO Test wins in getting across critical questions we need to ask ourselves not once but every day on the job.”

???? TOMORROW’S WEATHER- Expect daytime highs of 24°C and nighttime lows of 11°C tomorrow, our favorite weather app tells us.

The world’s biggest chicken bone is finally out of our collective throats after it was dislodged minutes before dispatch. Presidential advisor for canal projects (and former SCA chief) Mohab Mamish indicated that the Ever Given will undergo a comprehensive technical examination to ensure it is fit to be on its way, reports Youm7. The ship is apparently travelling north to the Great Bitter Lake, CNBC reported Leth Agencies — a transit agent at the canal — as saying moments ago.

Despite a minor setback around an hour ago: High winds this afternoon swung the Ever Given back across the Suez Canal, reblocking the waterway and ahead of the next attempt to fully dislodge it, reported Reuters. However, it proved a minor setback as the vessel was not regrounded and engineers were able to finally pry it away from the bank.

Things have been looking up since this morning after the Suez Canal Authority announced the ship was partially refloated successfully this morning, in a statement. Successful push and tow maneuvers had led to the restoration of 80% of the vessel's direction and the stern was 102 meters away from the bank. SCA Head Osama Rabie signalled that the ship could be cleared from the path through today’s continued efforts, he told Sada El Balad (watch, runtime: 08:14).

What had we been doing? Since yesterday, engineers have been taking advantage of a full moon that made low tide lower and high tide higher to float the ship. This afternoon, tugboats had been moving the stern of the ship back and forth to dislodge the front hull from the mud (a movement similar to wiggling a tooth), people familiar with the operation told Bloomberg.

The crews of 450 ships will say goodbye to the Red Sea soon: Marine traffic through the canal is still waiting to resume once the Ever Given is directed to the lakes area, a wider section of the Canal, allowing the more than 450 waiting vessels to continue their journeys.

Inshallah: If the vessel is dislodged today, all waiting ships should pass through the canal within the next three days, Rabie added.

It’s still a bad day to be in marine insurance: There’s a risk that this incident could push insurance companies to increase premiums on ships passing through the Canal, which in return would effectively impact the amount of vessels deciding to transit through the Egyptian waterway, Mamish told Amr Adib (watch, runtime: 2:02). However, Mamish stressed that the possibility of insurance premiums going up is so far hypothetical and that the SCA will work to offer better service in the future to offset the possible move. Around 12% of global trade passes through the Suez Canal, Mamish added, saying that he’s optimistic our foothold will remain in place.

That said, the blockage will lead to lower global earnings for reinsurers and losses in the hundreds of mns of EUR, Fitch Ratings said today. Reinsurers, who provide policies to insurance companies to shield them from some of the risks, will be affected financially, but their credit profiles won’t necessarily be hit, the ratings agency said. Those companies had already reported heavy declines in profitability due to paying high claims during the pandemic, Fitch noted.

The story has been leading coverage on Egypt on the front pages of the foreign press this afternoon: Reuters | Associated Press | Bloomberg | Financial Times | CNBC | The New York Times | The Wall Street Journal

Egyptian healthtech startup TakeStep has bagged an undisclosed seed investment from two angel investors including Mohamed Khedr who will join the firm as a managing partner, the company said in a statement (pdf) this morning. The funds will be used to expand TakeStep’s operations into the GCC region in “the near future,” the statement said without disclosing further details.

What does TakeStep do? Founded in 2018, the company operates a platform that connects people suffering substance addiction to psychiatrists, and bills itself as the only service of its kind in the Middle East to provide specialized support to addiction cases. It has helped more than 15k patients in Egypt and the US through its web platform and app, which provides people with access to professional help and monitors their progress to prevent relapse. It also provides therapy sessions via phone or video calls using emotional intelligence technology. TakeStep, along with other four African companies, has made it to Lisbon's Web Summit 2019.

The EGX was the second most active Arab bourse in 2020, with some USD 43.9 bn-worth of equities changing hands, and nearly doubling from USD 25.5 bn in 2019, the Arab Federation of Exchanges said in its annual report (pdf). By activity, the EGX trailed only behind Saudi’s Tadawul stock exchange, which executed USD 556 bn in transactions last year, and coming ahead of the Bahrain Stock Exchange’s USD 35.4 in annual turnover. While the level of turnover was high compared to the rest (apart from Tadawul), the EGX’s share in market capitalization was low relative to other Arab exchanges. This points to a lack of new listings and a market vulnerable to external factors such as the March investor sell-off that swept EMs in early 2020.

Egyptian constituents only account for 1.3% of market capitalization: The EGX’s USD 41.1 bn in market capitalization pales in comparison to a total USD 3.2 tn across the region. Companies on the Tadawul accounted for 75% of regional market cap, followed by Abu Dhabi’s ADX at 6.2% and Qatar’s DSM at 5.1%.

Egypt was also the worst performer on an annual basis, with the EGX30 sliding 22% last year to 10,845 points — its lowest level since 2016. However, most other 17 Arab indices also fell on a yearly basis. The Tadawul All Share Index (TASI) was a notable exception, eking out y-o-y growth of 4%.

And our share of new IPOs was tiny. Mid-cap real estate player Emerald was the only new major listing on the EGX in 2020, out of ten Arab companies the report says tapped their local exchanges in 2020. Diagnostics company Speed Medical was the only other new name on the main market in 2020 after completing a jump from small-cap NileX last December.

What happened? The pandemic made an already delicate situation worse. Most of the players who kept volumes up throughout 2020 were retail investors and local institutions whose trades were spread out over the dozens and dozens of small brokerages that have clung to their licenses for years despite anemic business. Foreigners have largely been sitting on the sidelines after having sold out of the market amid the great March selloff of 2020. Plus, the EGX suffered from a dearth of new listings, seeing only one new IPOs in 2020 and two in 2019.

Recent news is raising hopes that the IPO pipeline is heating up this year, with school management company Taaleem kicking off subscription for an offering that’s in final stages and Macro Group Pharma announcing a guidance range for its debut stock price earlier this week. London-listed consumer healthcare giant IDH is also planning a dual listing of at least 5% of its shares on the EGX expected to hit the market soon.

READ FURTHER:

• Our coverage of equity markets in the 2020 Year in Review.
• Leading analysts breakdown the state of foreign investment on the EGX over the past year.
• The threat of rising US yields to the exchange’s recovery.

IN OTHER MARKET NEWS- Telecom Egypt’s board of directors approved a dividend payout of EGP 1.3 bn to shareholders from its 2020 profits, the landline monopoly said in a news release (pdf). This amounts to a dividend of EGP 0.75 per share.

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EARNINGS WATCH- Sodic’s net income after tax and non-controlling interest rose 14% y-o-y to EGP 820 mn in 2020, up from EGP 719 mn in 2019, the company said in its earnings statement (pdf). Revenues for the year were up slightly to EGP 5.6 bn from EGP 5.3 bn in 2019.

Gross contracted sales grew 2% y-o-y to a record EGP 7.4 bn. Residential sales accounted for EGP 7.2 bn of the gross sales figure, increasing 19% from 2019. The real estate developer sold 1.36k units during the year and delivered 1.16k units, down slightly from 1.17k units in 2019. Sodic also increased its capex spending throughout the year to EGP 3.4 bn from EGP 3.1 bn and is proposing a dividend payout of EGP 0.55 per share despite the pandemic. “Once again the challenges have come to set SODIC apart for its ability to weather uncertainties and its commitment to delivering to its stakeholders,” CEO Magued Sherif said.

East Cairo business is starting to pick up steam: Sodic’s projects on the capital’s east side accounted for 39% of the year’s contracted sales, driven by the company’s relatively recent foray into the area with Villette and Sodic East. Sodic’s “strong legacy in West Cairo,” however, continued to be the larger driver of total sales, with projects on the western side representing 61% of overall sales. Sheikh Zayed flagship Sodic West and new developments recently added to Sodic’s portfolio — including West Cairo apartments complex One16, The Portal, The Strip II, and Westown Medical Center — contributed the most. In 2020, Sodic launched Karmell, its latest edition to the West Cairo line-up, but delayed the launch of Malaaz, which would have contributed EGP 1 bn to its top-line, due to “permitting delays in the North Coast region.”

Sodic is aiming to grow contracted sales 19% to EGP 8.8 bn next year, and expects to deliver some 1.2k units and generate nearly EGP 7 bn in revenue, at the same time increasing its spending on construction and new projects to EGP 3.9 bn, the company said. “Our targeted growth for 2021 echoes our confidence in the Egyptian real estate market and reiterates SODIC’s commitment to delivering value,” Sherif added.

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The EGX30 fell 1.2% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 1.1 bn (24.7% below the 90-day average). Local investors were net buyers. The index is down 1.0% YTD.

In the green: EFG Hermes (+3.0%), Pioneers (+2.0%) and GB Auto (+1.8%).

In the red: Eastern Co. (-3.6%), CIB (-2.5%) and Heliopolis Housing (-2.3%).

UN chief urges action to prevent incoming EM debt crisis: The UN secretary-general has warned that growing debt in the emerging world threatens to destabilize developing countries, tipping many into poverty, social unrest and conflict. “The response to covid and to the financial aspects [of the crisis] has been fragmented, and geopolitical divides are not helping,” Antonio Guterres told the Financial Times ahead of announcing new UN proposals to provide debt relief to low- and middle-income countries. “It has been too limited in scope and too late.”

An “illusion”: The fact that only six nations — Argentina, Belize, Ecuador, Lebanon, Suriname and Zambia — have defaulted on their debts since the onset of covid-19 last year has lulled the world into a false sense of security and a “misperception of the seriousness of the situation,” he said.

We’re not just talking about smaller, frontier markets: Larger emerging economies such as South Africa and Brazil have taken on significant amounts of local debt at higher interest rates, making a future EM debt crisis harder to see coming, he said.

And some are taking on more short-term debt: Some countries — such as Brazil — have shortened the average maturities of local-currency debt since the crisis, lowering borrowing costs but giving governments less time to repay. “They are essentially borrowing in the internal market but maturities are coming down … This is a very bad signal. There is an illusion of sustainability but it risks bringing quite dramatic surprises, especially if the recovery is slower than expected from the slower access to vaccines,” he said.

This is the opposite of what Egypt has tried to do: The Egyptian government is working to issue more longer-term debt; as of June last year, the Finance Ministry had extended the average maturity of its debt profile to 3.2 years, up from 1.3 years in June 2013.

IMF to the rescue? The UN is proposing that the IMF issue new special drawing rights (SDRs) to allow it to provide more post-covid relief to low-income countries. Advanced economies may also be asked to contribute their SDRs to the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust — a facility earmarked for the world’s poorest countries — and a new unit to be set up specifically to channel finance to struggling middle-income nations.

The G7 recently gave its backing to new SDRs, which reportedly could be upped by another USD 650 bn to allow it to provide more post-covid relief to low-income countries. The plan is expected to be given final approval at the IMF and World Bank’s Spring Meetings, which will take place during the first week of April.

This would be the biggest SDR issuance in history, Guterres said when asked whether the measures on the table would be enough to tackle the scale of the problem. “Some of these things are quite radical … It will break taboos. If multilateral and national institutions are ready to enter into partnerships and provide guarantees, we can create incentives for the financial sector to mobilise a lot of additional private funding,” he said.

Want to be more productive? Do nothing for a while. Watching a coffee pot boil or gazing out the window has become harder with WFH now firmly ingrained in our schedules, but these brief, mindless timeouts help our brains reinforce long-term learning and productivity, writes the Wall Street Journal. Empty periods of time are important for your brain’s cleanup process, and rest is a surefire way to enhance our neurological flexibility, allowing us to build the introspection necessary for a sense of purpose and wellbeing, says University of Southern California Psychology and Neuroscience professor Mary Helen Immordino-Yang.

Resting and being idle are not the same thing: Neuroscience research has shown that the region of the brain that becomes active when we are “doing nothing,” called the Default Mode Network, is essential for developing our understanding of ourselves, processing information, and resolving problems and tensions. During this resting mode, the brain is actually consuming 20 times as much energy as it does when we actively respond to an outside stimulus. Since our brains are running background processes all the time, a degree of daydreaming is essential for our minds to decongest.

Here are some techniques to help you do nothing: Taking a long shower can help your mind wander can help quieten down hectic environments, as can playing a game without keeping score, and taking the time to cook a big meal. The therapeutic effects of spending time in nature (or just outdoors in general) have also been widely researched, with one study showing that s 90 minute walk significantly reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain associated with negative thought patterns, anxiety, and worrying. Setting a 10k step target, or starting off with a smaller goal has also been linked to mental benefits. And if all else fails, just sitting down or taking a short nap can do the trick. Focusing on your breathing through meditation or other techniques is also a tried and true way to quieten the mind.

The key is to break out of the rat race: Whichever activity you choose, it needs to be done without goals or objectives. Keeping score is labor, the article suggests, and while achieving a target does induce dopamine, staying focused on the target will detract from the purpose of the exercise, which is shutting off your brain to begin with. So don’t feel guilty about getting some rest or just staring out the window. Science recommends it.

March: Potential visit to Cairo by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

28-29 March (Sunday-Monday): Arab Academy for Science, Technology & Maritime Transport Startup Festival, Sharm El Sheikh.

29-30 March (Monday-Tuesday): Arab Federation of Exchanges Annual Conference 2021.

30 March (Wednesday): Deadline to visit the moroor and get an RFID sticker affixed to your car’s windshield — or run afoul of the Traffic Police.

31 March (Wednesday): Income tax deadline for individuals. Real estate tax filing deadline.

31 March (Wednesday): The Egyptian-Croation Business Forum will convene.

1-3 April (Thursday-Saturday): HVAC-R Egypt Expo, Egypt International Exhibition Center, New Cairo.

5-11 April: The Spring Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank Group will take place virtually.

6 April (Tuesday): French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Egypt working breakfast with Sovereign Fund of Egypt CEO Ayman Soliman.

7 April (Wednesday): British-Egyptian Business Association (BEBA) webinar on digital banking and fintech.

8-10 April (Thursday-Saturday): The TriFactory’s Endurance Festival at Somabay.

13 April (Monday): First day of Ramadan (TBC).

25 April (Sunday): Sinai Liberation Day.

29 April (Thursday): National holiday in observance of Sinai Liberation Day (TBC),

29 April (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

1 May (Saturday): Labor Day (national holiday).

2 May (Sunday): Coptic Easter Sunday.

3 May (Monday): Sham El Nessim.

13-15 May (Thursday-Saturday): Eid El Fitr (TBC).

25-28 May (Tuesday-Friday): The World Economic Forum annual meeting, Singapore.

1 June (Tuesday): The IMF will conduct a second review of targets set under the USD 5.2 bn standby loan approved in June 2020 (proposed date).

7-9 June (Monday-Wednesday): Egypt Petroleum Show, Egypt International Exhibition Center, New Cairo, Egypt.

17 June (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

17-20 June (Thursday-Sunday) : The International Exhibition of Materials and Technologies for Finishing and Construction (Turnkey Expo), Cairo International Conference Center.

24 June (Thursday): End of the 2020-2021 academic year (public schools).

26-29 June (Saturday-Tuesday): The Big 5 Construct Egypt, Cairo International Convention Center, Cairo, Egypt.

30 June (Wednesday): 30 June Revolution Day.

30 June- 15 July: National Book Fair.

1 July: (Thursday): National holiday in observance of 30 June Revolution.

1 July (Thursday): Large taxpayers that have not yet signed on on to the e-invoicing platform will suffer a host of penalties, including removal from large taxpayer classification, losing access to government services and business, and losing subsidies.

19 July (Monday): Arafat Day (national holiday).

20-23 July (Tuesday-Friday): Eid Al Adha (national holiday)

23 July (Friday): Revolution Day (national holiday).

5 August (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

9 August (Monday): Islamic New Year.

12 August (Thursday): National holiday in observance of the Islamic New Year.

16 September (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

30 September-2 October (Thursday-Saturday): Egypt Projects 2021 expo, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo, Egypt.

1 October (Friday): Expo 2020 Dubai opens.

6 October (Wednesday): Armed Forces Day.

7 October (Thursday): National holiday in observance of Armed Forces Day.

18 October (Monday): Prophet’s Birthday.

21 October (Thursday): National holiday in observance of the Prophet’s Birthday.

28 October (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

1-12 November (Monday-Friday): 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), Glasgow, United Kingdom.

13-17 December: United Nations Convention against Corruption, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

16 December (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

27 June – 3 July 2022 (Monday-Sunday): World University Squash Championships, New Giza.

Note to readers: Some national holidays may appear twice above. Since 2020, Egypt has observed most mid-week holidays on Thursdays regardless of the day on which they fall and may also move those days to Sundays. We distinguish below between the actual holiday and its observance.