Good morning, friends, and welcome to last day of Q1 — and another big news day.

IT’S A BIG DAY FOR: Investment news. The Sovereign Fund of Egypt has joined the EFG Hermes Education Fund as a limited partner, with its EGP 250 mn commitment bringing the fund to third close. The SFE is also looking to restructure its much of its real estate holdings into a new entity that it could IPO in the future.

Meanwhile, EGX boss Mohamed Farid is looking forward to a good year, saying the exchange could see as many as six new listings in 2021 — and, in the process, lure institutional investors back from the sidelines. The market has been 60-70% retail since the great EM sell-off early in the pandemic.

IN LOCAL COVID NEWS: We’re getting nearly 1 mn more covid jabs today and there’s more on the horizon, health officials say. Some 854k doses of AstraZeneca’s jab should land today and as many as 4.5 mn more should be here “in the coming period,” they said. Plus, mosques will be allowed to open for all five daily prayers plus taraweeh this Ramadan. The evening taraweeh prayers will be capped at 30 minutes in length.

We have the rundown on all of this and more in this morning’s news well, below.

WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY-

It’s also a morning full of warnings and reminders:

• It’s the last day to file your real estate taxes, which you can do here.
• If you earn income outside a day job with a company (or if you’re a freelancer, etc), you need to file your personal income tax return today.
• Your corporate tax return is due one month from today.
• It is now 13 days until Ramadan.

It’s also the final day to settle building code violations with the government, which you can do until 10pm today, Local Development Ministry spokesperson Khaled Kassem told Ala Mas’ouleety’s Ahmed Moussa. Those who pay their settlement fees in banknotes will pay 25% less than those who pay electronically, according to Kassem. There are some 2.09 mn settlement requests that have come through to date (watch, runtime: 16:00).

Your deadline to get an RFID tag on your car passed yesterday. We suggest hauling [redacted] to your moroor ASAP to affix the sticker on your windshield.

YET ANOTHER WARNING: Many large taxpayers need to sign up for the state’s new e-invoicing system by mid-April or face prosecution, Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said in a statement warning companies that were on-boarded for the second rollout phase of the ministry’s new platform. Maait had previously said those failing to comply could face a host of penalties, including removal from large taxpayer classification, which would entail losing perks such as expedited tax procedures, settlements, and less frequent auditing. As things stand, the system is mandatory for some 481 of the country's largest taxpayers — 134 of which joined during a pilot phase and 347 in the ongoing second phase, the statement said.

The ministry is planning to get all 2.8k large taxpayers registered to use the platform by 1 July, before gradually rolling it nationwide.

***CATCH UP QUICK with the top stories from yesterday’s edition of EnterprisePM:

• An investigation to determine what went wrong with the Ever Given is underway. Expect lots of passing the buck.
• Orascom Financial Holding is making its entry into the fintech space with a new e-payments company.
• Egypt’s three clearing and depository companies will need to run their board elections under new rules announced by the Financial Regulatory Authority.

MARKET WATCH-

OPEC+ countries will likely decide to maintain production cuts at their monthly meeting tomorrow after the coalition decided earlier this month to maintain cuts through April, Bloomberg reports. The decision, which was broadly against expectations, came as the group shied away from overestimating a potential demand rebound. Brent prices had hit a two-year high of USD 70 / bbl following the 4 March announcement, but slumped by almost USD 10 / bbl the following week off of dampened demand following a renewed round of lockdowns in Europe and increased Iranian exports to China. Saudi Arabia’s 1mn bbl / day production cut is likely to be extended yet again in tomorrow’s meeting, observers say, with the coalition currently holding back around 8 mn bbl / day, or 8% of global oil supply, to avoid a glut and maintain prices.

CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

The Egyptian-Croatian Business Forum meets tomorrow 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 British Egyptian Business Association (BEBA) will host a webinar on combating harassment and violence in the workplace tomorrow at midday. Register for the event here.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is due in town on 12 April to discuss the latest developments on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, signaling Russia could be looking to play an active role in mediating the impasse, according to TenTV’s Al Mashhad (watch, runtime: 1:28). Lavrov’s planned trip comes after expectations that Russian President Vladimir Putin would visit Egypt sometime in March did not materialize.

“Summer hours” will come into effect for stores and restaurants as of 17 April. This means retail shops can close at 11pm (instead of 10pm during the winter), while cafes and restaurants can stay open until 1am (instead of midnight currently). We have more details on the winter vs. summer hours here.

Check out our full calendar on the web for a comprehensive listing of upcoming news events, national holidays and news triggers.

*** It’s Hardhat day — your weekly briefing of all things infrastructure in Egypt: Enterprise’s industry vertical focuses each Wednesday on infrastructure, covering everything from energy, water, transportation, urban development and as well as social infrastructure such as health and education.

In today’s issue: We present to you part two of how local startups are fixing the fragmented supply chain. This week, we are looking at social commerce platform Brimore, which is turning average households in remote areas into points-of-sale by cutting down the stops of the traditional supply chain. You can catch up on part one, where we dove into B2B bulk ordering platform MaxAB, here.