Egypt closes USD 3 bn eurobond offering + walk-in vaccination clinics to open this morning

Good morning, wonderful people, and welcome to a new workweek. We hope you enjoyed the fall weather this weekend as much as we did.

THE BIG STORY THIS MORNING for thousands of readers waiting to get jabbed: Walk-in vaccination clinics are apparently a thing, with the first of the centers set to open this morning. We have more in this morning’s Covid Watch, below, and hope to have an update this afternoon.

The latest sign summer is really, truly over: The House of Representatives and Senate are getting ready to go back to work after summer recess. President Abdel Fattah El Sisi has decreed that the House will reconvene for its new legislative season on Saturday, 2 October. The decree also states that the Senate will go back into session on 5 October (just in time for the Sixth of October holiday).

We’ll have more later this week on business-relevant legislation we think will be high on the Madbouly government’s priority list when the House gets back to work. Holdover bills from the last session include amendments to the old rent law as well as the personal status law. The government has also telegraphed that it may be looking to impose new regulation on the real estate industry, though much of what has been in the public eye so far is stuff that officials could likely enact through regulatory change rather than an act of parliament.

Shops and restaurants will have to close a little earlier from the end of this week when winter opening hours come into effect. The Local Development Ministry announced last week that fall hours will come into force on Thursday, 30 September, meaning shops and malls will close one hour earlier at 10pm (11pm on Thursdays, Fridays and national holidays) while cafes and restaurants will shutter at midnight rather than 1am. As during the summer, essential services such as grocery stories, supermarkets and pharmacies are exempt from the rules and can open and close their doors when they want.

ATTENTION YOUTUBERS AND BLOGGERS- The taxman is coming for you. Youtubers, Instagrammers, bloggers, vloggers and other online content creators have been instructed by the Tax Authority to register to pay income tax. All content creators who earn over EGP 500k a year will also have to charge and remit 10% VAT on the “services” they offer — read: product placement and other branded content. So a content creator is effectively being recognized as a business and will have to pay income tax on their total business income (on things like Youtube ads) and separately charge VAT for folks paying them directly for services. We have more in Last Night’s Talk Shows, below.

It’s (the start of) the end of an era in Europe this week: German voters are going to the polls today in a national election that Reuters writes is “too close to call … ​​with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) mounting a strong challenge to retiring Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives.” Merkel, who has been in office since 2005, plans to step down after the election but could still be around for weeks or months to come as a caretaker while parties sort out a possible coalition government. The WSJ has a look at what Merkel’s time in office has meant.

HAPPENING THIS WEEK-

White House National Security adviser Jake Sullivan will visit Cairo this week as part of a brief Middle East tour that will take him to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, sources with knowledge of the matter tell Axios.

The deadline to register for the AUC Business School’s Private Equity Diploma is coming up on Tuesday, 28 September.

ITIDA’s DevOpsDays Cairo 2021, will take place on Wednesday, 29 September.

The Cairo International Fair opens on Thursday, 30 September at the Cairo International Conference Center. It runs through 8 October.

The Egypt Projects 2021 construction expo also opens on Thursday at the Egypt International Exhibition Center and wraps on Saturday, 2 October.

Dubai’s Expo 2020 opens on Friday, 1 October. The event, which takes place somewhere on the planet once every five years, runs for six months and will be open seven days a week. You can learn more here.

PSA- Next week is a short workweek. You can expect to have a three-day weekend 7-9 October in observance of Armed Forces Day, which is on 6 October.

A BIT FURTHER OUT- The first phase of the planned electric rail line between Salam City and Tenth of Ramadan City will be inaugurated at the end of October, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said in a cabinet statement. The line, which connects Adly Mansour station to the new administrative capital, will open next month for a three-month trial, Madbouly said.

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

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THE BIG STORIES ABROAD are all very China-focused. Look for many of these to have an impact on everything from equities to crypto and general business / risk sentiment in the days to come.

#1- Evergrande (obviously): The embattled property developer (named the world’s most indebted company), which helped drive a selloff in global equities last week, continued to make headlines for all the wrong reasons. Global holders of the company’s USD bonds had reportedly not received an interest payment from the property giant by Thursday’s deadline, people familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal (paywall). Evergrande was supposed to pay USD 83.5 mn to investors on Thursday, but the company does have a 30-day grace period before bond holders can call a default.

Meanwhile, it’s EV unit (don’t ask us why it has one) is saying that there is no certainty that it can pay its debts and has “suspended paying some of its operating expenses,” China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group said in a regulatory filing (pdf) to the Hong Kong exchange on Friday.

Evergrande’s situation is made more precarious by reports that Beijing is reluctant to bail it out, with the central government reportedly telling local officials to make preparations for a “possible storm” and social unrest.

Want the abridged Evergrande backstory? This Twitter thread is a great place to start.

#2- Crypto ban: The People’s Bank of China has declared that all cryptocurrency transactions are illegal — and warned all of China’s financial institutions and payment firms from processing all cryptos, including BTC, ether and tether. It is now illegal for overseas exchanges to provide services for residents in China through the internet, China’s central bank said in a memo (Chinese) on Friday.

Crypto has fallen as a result, with the price of BTC falling more than 8% to just under USD 41,370 on Friday. BTC prices recovered slightly on Saturday, rising to USD 42,674.

#3- Hostage diplomacy: Chinese authorities have released two Canadians detained more than three years ago in an apparent quid pro quo for the freeing of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, who was allowed to return to China on Friday after spending years under house arrest on criminal fraud charges. The Financial Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal all have coverage.

#4- More Chinese CEOs in the klink: China has “kicked up its campaign to tame … debt-laden companies, as the authorities punished the corporate chiefs of two troubled companies,” arresting the two top executives of the HNA group, “a transportation and logistics conglomerate that bought up businesses around the world before quickly collapsing under heavy debts,” the New York Times writes.

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IMF boss Georgieva denies faking China Doing Business rankings, blames ex World Bank head: Embattled IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva has denied pressuring staff to artificially improve China’s ranking in the World Bank’s 2018 Doing Business report, and has pointed the finger at the office of former World Bank head Jim Yong Kim. “Let me be clear: the conclusions are wrong. I did not pressure anyone to alter any reports,” Georgieva said on Friday, adding that she had blocked a proposal from a staffer in Kim’s office to combine Hong Kong’s data with China in the report, which would have given a huge boost to China’s position. Georgieva will “soon” give a statement to the IMF’s executive board. The Financial Times and Reuters have the story.

** IN CASE YOU MISSED IT from Thursday’s edition of EnterprisePM:

• Mercedes-Benz is closer to resuming car assembly in Egypt: Mercedes-Benz received a 20k sqm plot of land in the Suez Canal Economic Zone, which will be used as a logistics base that will distribute cars locally and re-export them.
• Egypt, US strengthen bilateral ties: Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly to discuss regional issues.
• Huge week for sci-fi geeks: From the adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation which was out with two episodes on Apple TV+, to the 2021 remake of the sci-fi classic Dune hitting theatres, it was definitely sci-fi geeks’ weekend.

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TODAY’S WEATHER- This weekend’s good weather looks set to continue, with our favorite weather app telling us that Cairo will see a daytime high of 32°C and overnight low of 21°C today. Don’t expect the mercury to rise above 33°C this week.

Egypt successfully sold USD 3 bn of eurobonds in last Thursday’s issuance — a sale that was 3x oversubscribed, according to a Finance Ministry statement on Friday. Egypt received offers for USD 9 bn on USD-denominated bonds, with 6-, 12-, and 30-year tenors. Egypt sold USD 1.125 bn worth of 6-year notes at a yield of 5.8%, USD 1.125 bn in 12-year notes at a yield of 7.3%, and USD 750 mn in 30-year bonds at 8.75%.

Final yields were cut by as much as 32.5 bps thanks to the strong demand among the 300 participating investors. Egypt had offered the 6-year bonds at a yield of 6.125%, while the 12- and 30-year bonds carried yields of 7.625% and 8.875%, respectively. Egypt last tapped international markets back in February with a USD 3.75 bn in USD-denominated eurobond sale that was 4x oversubscribed.

But our yields and interest rates are still among the highest in the world: The emerging markets that are best prepared to manage the impact of the US Fed’s stimulus tapering are those that are sitting on positive interest rates, “and Egypt is at the forefront of that,” with real interest rates at around 3%, Hasnain Malik, who heads equities research at Tellimer, told Bloomberg TV on Thursday (watch, runtime: 6:58).

Advisers: HSBC, FAB, Citibank, Standard Chartered, and JP Morgan advised on the sale.

On your marks, get set, sell: Egypt has joined the growing list of emerging-market governments that have gone to the international debt markets in recent days wanting to capitalize on the low-rate environment before the US Federal Reserve and other central banks begin to taper stimulus measures. The past week alone saw governments and companies issue USD 36 bn in USD- and EUR-denominated debt after the previous 10 weeks saw only USD 90 bn raised, according to Bloomberg. “Sales from Indonesia, Turkey, Chile, Serbia and Hungary were all met with robust investor demand,” it notes.

EMs that are not doing well? EMs with negative real interest rates will have the hardest time with the Fed’s tapering, including places like Argentina, Nigeria and Poland, says Malik. Here in the region, Saudi Arabia is particularly vulnerable with a -4.7% real interest rate. That has driven a lot of liquidity out of fixed income and into equities, he noted.

Shell is out of the Western Desert: Cheiron and partner Cairn Energy have acquired Shell’s oil and gas assets in the Western Desert under an agreement in March that could be worth up to USD 926 mn, the three companies announced in separate statements on Friday (here (pdf), here and here).

The agreement: Under the agreement, UK-listed Cairn and Egypt’s Cheiron have purchased the Dutch energy giant’s entire Western Desert portfolio for USD 646 mn, which could be extended to USD 926 mn depending on oil prices and exploration efforts over the next three years. Cheiron and Cairn are splitting ownership 50/50, meaning that each will initially pay USD 323 mn.

The portfolio: The assets include 13 onshore concessions with proven and probable reserves amounting to some 113 mn barrels, and Shell’s stake in Badr El-Din Petroleum (Bapetco) — a joint venture company established with the state-owned Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation. Cheiron will receive assets producing almost 40k barrels of oil equivalent per day on a working interest basis, while Cairn will add between 33-38k boe/d of production to its portfolio.

Who does what: Under the acquisition Cheiron will operate the production and development concessions, while Cairn will be responsible for three of the exploration licenses. Bapetco will continue to manage the field activities. Cairn said earlier this month that it intends to increase investment during the first half of 2022.

What’s next for Shell? The company is refocusing its business in Egypt on its existing infrastructure position, the West Delta Deep Marine, and LNG joint-venture.

The Dutch oil giant has been wanting to offload its Western Desert assets since 2019, and was originally looking to sell them for as much as USD 1 bn. A consortium of Cheiron, Cairn Energy and Pharos Energy had moved to a second round of bidding last April, before Pharos left the talks due to the collapse in oil prices.

Advisors: Rothschild & Co and Gaffney Cline & Associates acted as advisors on the acquisition.

Anyone who has not yet registered for vaccination can go to walk-in clinics at youth centers for same-day vaccination starting this morning, Health Minister Hala Zayed told El Hekaya’s Amr Adib in an interview on Friday night (watch, runtime: 33:13). She added that 850 vaccination centers, including 175 for travel vaccination, are now operational for pre-scheduled appointments. We’re digging into the story and hope to have more this afternoon on where the walk-in clinics are located and how they work.

Egypt will begin vaccinating under-18s before the end of the year: Vaccination will begin for secondary school students between the ages of 15-18 within the next two months, Zayed told Adib.

We’re about 3-4 weeks away from the peak of the fourth wave, Zayed said at a presser on Thursday (watch, runtime: 5:36). She said the ministry expects the death toll to be lower than in previous waves thanks to progress on the national immunization drive and the emergence of a substantial number of people who have natural immunity thanks to prior infection.

Taking stock of vaccines: Egypt received 2.3 mn doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine from Germany last week, Zayed said at the presser on Thursday (watch, runtime: 48:13). The ministry also received 546k AstraZeneca vaccine doses from the French government under the Covax initiative.

And up to 5.2 mn doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines will reach the country within a few days, Zayed said.

The latest vaccination tally: Some 16 mn Egyptians have now received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, 5 mn of whom have received both doses, Zayed said. The last count put the number of vaccinated people in the country at 13 mn in mid-September.

Vacsera’s second covid vaccine production line will start operating within the coming six weeks: The rollout will start as soon as Vacsera opens its second production line at its Agouza facility in the coming 5-6 weeks, which will double its daily production capacity to 1 mn doses.

MEANWHILE- Russia’s one-shot ‘Sputnik Light’ approved by the EDA: The Egyptian Drug Authority (ED) has given the greenlight under emergency use authorization procedures to Russia’s new one-dose Sputnik Light vaccine, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund announced in a statement on Friday. The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) did not specify how many doses of the new vaccine could be distributed in Egypt.

The EDA gave emergency approval for Russia‘s original two-dose Sputnik V jab in February, while the first 210k of tens of mns of doses agreed to be delivered from Russia and manufactured locally were delivered in June.

Egypt will start supplying African nations with vaccines within six weeks, Zayed said. This comes after the African Export-Import Bank in addition to the African Union visited Egypt’s factories and requested to buy vaccines for African nations through the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT).

The government is currently in talks with Moderna to manufacture its vaccines locally for export to other parts of Africa. The jabs would be produced at Vacsera’s new facility in Sixth of October, which is currently under construction and expected to produce up to 3 mn jabs per day when fully operational.

The Health Ministry reported 667 new covid-19 infections yesterday, up from 568 the day before. Egypt has now disclosed a total of 300,945 confirmed cases of covid-19. The ministry also reported 39 new deaths, bringing the country’s total death toll to 17,149.

The Sovereign Fund of Egypt (SFE) is working to launch a technology-focused sub-fund, CEO Ayman Soliman told Al Arabiya. The fund will invest in tech essential to high-growth sectors, manufacturing and sustainable development, Soliman said, without disclosing a target value for the fund or providing further details.

The SFE is also planning to launch a fund targeted at the education industry: Soliman said last month that an education sub-fund would finance the construction of hundreds of schools across the country targeted at middle-class families.

These will be the fifth and sixth sub-funds operated by the SFE: The SFE already operates healthcare, financial services, tourism and real estate, and infrastructure sub-funds.

Rising global demand for holidays in Egypt has left some travel agencies in the UK unable to make bookings, the UK Sun reports. UK-based agency Discover Egypt said that it received a stop notice from Egyptian hotels and cruises for October 2022 due to being fully booked. “We have been getting stop notices from hotels and Nile cruises and not just for this October — I’m more concerned about next October,” the company’s commercial director said. “We’re coming across stop notices because all the other countries, except the UK and one or two others, are sending people to Egypt in full flow.”

The British are booking up Egyptian hotels quickly after Egypt was taken off the UK’s red list earlier this month, with some travel agencies recording a 200% spike in holiday bookings. Egypt had been placed on the UK’s red list since 8 June, had deterred UK travellers from visiting Egypt due to the inconvenience and cost of a mandatory 10-day quarantine when reentering the UK. Egypt was at risk of losing as much as EGP 31 mn in daily revenues had it remained on the list.

HSBC Egypt has appointed Nasser Alshaali (LinkedIn) as its chairman as of 22 September, succeeding David Eldon, according to a statement (pdf) from the bank. Alshaali previously served as CEO of the Dubai International Finance Centre, managing director of Sabertia Capital Partners, and most recently as executive director of Dubai-based firm Stra-tical Associates.

Cairn Energy has appointed Eleanor Rowley (LinkedIn) as its Egypt managing director following its acquisition of Shell’s onshore assets in the Western Desert, it announced in a statement on Friday. Rowley joins Cairn after more than five years serving as Total’s vice president for exploration in MENA, southern Europe and the Caspian. We have more on the acquisition in this morning’s Speed Round, above.

Al Baraka Bank has appointed Hazem Hegazy (LinkedIn) as vice chairman and CEO as of 1 October, according to a statement (pdf). The appointment is subject to the Central Bank of Egypt’s approval. He succeeds Ashraf El-Ghamrawy.

Newly announced taxes on online content creators headlined last night’s talk shows. YouTubers, Instagrammers, bloggers, vloggers and other online content creators will have to start paying income tax under a directive from the Tax Authority over the weekend designed to crack down on online tax evasion.

The tax is not being imposed through new legislation but is already afforded under the 2005 tax act, which stipulates that all income must be taxed, the Tax Authority’s e-commerce head, Sayed Saqr, said in a phone call with Alaa Mas’ouleety’s Ahmed Moussa (watch, runtime: 15:33).

And that’s not all: Creators who make more than EGP 500k a year will be required to charge VAT on any services offered via their channels (think: endorsements, sponsored content and host-read ads). All creators will need to register for VAT regardless of their income, Saqr said.

The taxman is watching: “We have a protocol with the Communications Ministry that allows us to obtain sufficient data about people who trade online, and we are in constant contact with very important platforms for information about the people who deal on them,” the director-general of the Tax Authority’s technical office, Talaat Abdel Salam, told Al Hayah Al Youm’s Lubna Asal (watch, runtime: 13:59). Kelma Akhira (watch, runtime: 10:02) and Sada El Balad’s Salet El Tahrir (watch, runtime: 14:40) also had coverage of the story.

No date has yet been fixed for a return to GERD negotiations, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told Kelma Akhira’s Lamees El Hadidi (watch, runtime: 12:02) in a call from the UN General Assembly in New York. He said he had stressed Egypt's desire to reach a binding legal agreement on the dam, despite Ethiopian intransigence, in meetings with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and UN Secretary-General António Guterres, adding that Egypt has put its trust in current AU chair, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to resume negotiations. Shoukry said the ministry was evaluating a document sent by the Congolese foreign ministry to the three negotiating parties on restarting the talks.

Leading the conversation on Egypt in the foreign press this morning: Egyptian artefacts believed to have been used in ritual worship of Haythor, the sky goddess, have been unearthed by archeologists working at the Hill of the Pharaohs site in Kafr El-Sheikh’s ancient city of Buto. (Sputnik International | The Smithsonian | Live Science)

Also getting attention:

• Public to private: The UAE’s the National covers the IMF, EBRD webinar on state-owned enterprises last week, during which Public Enterprises Minister Hisham Tawfik spoke of the need to shutter loss-making public sector companies and expand private sector participation in the economy.
• Future homes: The self-cooling Bahariya farmhouses designed by Egyptian architectural firm ECOnsult are highlighted in this Financial Times feature on how to build homes for a hotter future.
• And future cities: Local and international contractors and the military are benefitting from the Egyptian government’s ambitious plan to construct 37 new cities around the country, the Africa Report says.

DiDi tests EVs: Chinese ride-sharing app DiDi will begin using electric cars in Egypt next year and will begin trials of the vehicles with BYD Auto in October, a company representative told Hapi Journal. This comes a week after the company launched in Egypt.

Other things we’re keeping an eye on this morning:

• Saudi Arabia will no longer test six Egyptian crops for pesticide residues in a move designed to increase its imports of Egyptian products, Al Borsa reports, citing a letter from the kingdom. Grapefruit, lemon, onion, cumin, dried cowpeas and anise became exempt from testing as of the middle of September, according to the letter. Saudi Arabia accounts for around 14% of Egypt’s agricultural exports.
• Luxor Airport welcomed its first flight from Romanian carrier Blue Air yesterday, landing from Bucharest before continuing on to Hurghada, according to Al Borsa.

UN Sec-Gen talks GERD with Egyptian, Ethiopian FMs: Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry met with UN Secretary-General António Guterres yesterday, according to statements from Guterres’ office and the Egyptian foreign ministry. The two discussed Libya and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, among other regional developments, while Guteress reiterated the UN’s support for the African Union-led negotiations on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Guterres gave the same message to Ethiopian deputy prime minister and foreign minister Demeke Mekonnen Hassen in their meeting on Friday, underlining to Ethiopia “the importance of resuming dialogue in a spirit of compromise.”

In other diplomatic engagements over the weekend:

• Shoukry met with his Cypriot and Greek counterparts on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last week, ministry spokesman Ahmed Hafez said.
• Egypt-Ukraine talks: President Abdel Fattah El Sisi discussed investment, immigration and security with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday, according to an Ittihadiya statement.
• Shoukry also met with Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad, where the two discussed ways to end the crisis in Syria, according to a foreign ministry statement.

Algeria closed its airspace to all Moroccan civil and military aircraft, the Algerian Presidency said last week, less than a month after it severed diplomatic ties with its neighbour. The government could take further measures against Morocco, an Algerian foreign ministry official told Reuters, without specifying what actions it could take. Tensions between the two countries were inflamed earlier this year when Algiers accused Morocco of backing an Algerian separatist organization.

Tunisia’s president has given himself sweeping new powers, saying last week that he will overrule parts of the constitution and rule by decree, Reuters reports. President Kais Saied has been consolidating his grip on power since he dismissed the prime minister and parliament and assumed executive power under emergency measures this summer.

14-30 September (Tuesday-Thursday): 76th session of the UN General Assembly, New York.

29 September (Wednesday): DevOpsDays Cairo 2021 is being organized by ITIDA and the Software Engineering Competence Center in cooperation with DXC Technology, IBM Egypt and Orange Labs.

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

30 September-8 October (Thursday-Friday): The Cairo International Fair, Cairo International Conference Center, Cairo, Egypt.

30 September (Thursday): Winter opening hours for shops and restaurants begins.

30 September: Closing of 2021’s first oil and gas tender in the Gulf of Suez, Western Desert, and the Mediterranean.

30 September (Thursday): First tranche of overdue subsidy payouts will be handed to eligible exporters.

30 September (Thursday): Direct flights between Egypt and three Libyan airports resume.

October: Romanian President Klaus Iohannis could visit Egypt in mid this month to discuss ways to boost tourism cooperation between the two countries.

1 October (Friday): Businesses importing goods at seaports will need to file shipping documents and cargo data digitally to the Advance Cargo Information (ACI) system.

1 October (Friday): Expo 2020 Dubai opens.

1 October (Friday): Deadline for state-owned companies and government agencies to sign up to e-invoicing platform.

2 October (Saturday): House returns from recess; new legislative session begins.

5 October (Tuesday): Senate returns from recess; new legislative session begins.

6 October (Wednesday): Armed Forces Day.

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

9 October (Saturday): Public schools begin 2021-2022 academic year

11-17 October (Monday-Sunday): IMF + World Bank Annual Meetings.

12-14 October (Tuesday-Thursday): Mediterranean Offshore Conference, Alexandria, Egypt.

18 October (Monday): Prophet’s Birthday.

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

24-28 October (Sunday-Thursday) Cairo Water Week, Cairo, Egypt.

27-28 October (Wednesday-Thursday) Intelligent Cities Exhibition & Conference, Royal Maxim Palace Kempinski, Cairo, Egypt.

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

28 October (Thursday): Second tranche of overdue subsidy payouts will be handed to eligible exporters.

30 October – 4 November (Saturday-Thursday): The first edition of Race The Legends, Egypt.

November: The French-Egyptian Business Forum is set to take place in the Suez Canal Economic Zone.

November: Egypt will host another round of talks to reach a potential Egyptian-Eurasian trade agreement, which can significantly contribute to increasing the volume of Egyptian exports to the Russia-led bloc that includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

1-3 November (Monday-Wednesday): Egypt Energy exhibition on power and renewable energy, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo, Egypt.

2-3 November (Tuesday-Wednesday): The Federal Reserve meets to review interest rates.

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

16-17 November (Tuesday-Wednesday): Africa fintech summit, Cairo.

26 November-5 December (Friday-Sunday): The 43rd Cairo International Film Festival.

29 November-2 December (Monday-Thursday): Egypt Defense Expo, Egypt International Exhibition Centre.

7-8 December (Tuesday-Wednesday): North Africa Trade Finance Summit.

8-10 December (Wednesday-Thursday): Global Forum for Higher Education and Scientific Research (GFHS), Cairo, Egypt.

12-14 December (Sunday-Tuesday): Food Africa Cairo trade exhibition, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo, Egypt.

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

14-19 December (Tuesday-Sunday): The Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theater.

14-15 December (Tuesday-Wednesday): The Federal Reserve meets to review interest rates.

15 December (Wednesday): Deadline for joint stock companies and investment companies in Cairo to join e-invoicing platform.

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

14-16 February 2022 (Monday-Wednesday): Egypt Petroleum Show, Egypt International Exhibition Center, New Cairo, Egypt.

1H2022: The World Economic Forum annual meeting, location TBD.

22-24 April 2022: World Bank-IMF spring meeting, Washington D.C.

May 2022: Investment in Logistics Conference, Cairo, Egypt

16 June 2022 (Thursday): End of 2021-2022 academic year for public schools

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

2H2022: IEF-IGU Ministerial Gas Forum, Egypt. Date + location TBA.

**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.