PM — The EGX30 lost around 10% of its value in less than three weeks.

It’s not a good afternoon for environment news, ladies and gentlemen, with EV prices on the rise and an alarming report about e-waste, the details of which you can find in today’s For Your Commute and What’s Next sections. On the plus side, we here in emerging markets appear to be better at saving than in developed countries.

THE BIG STORIES TODAY-

#1- The EGX30 slide continues: After a slight reprieve that saw the benchmark index rise less than 0.1% at yesterday’s close, the EGX30 fell by 2.0% today with a turnover of EGP 828 mn (0.1% above the 90-day average). By our count, the index has now lost around 10% of its value in less than three weeks.

As for today, local investors were net buyers. The index is down 22.5% YTD.

In the green: Oriental Weavers (+0.8%) and Eastern Company (+0.6%).

In the red: GB Auto (-11.0%), Fawry (-9.6%) and Orascom Development Egypt (-7.2%).

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#2- MNT-Halan’s microfinance subsidiary Tasaheel issued securitized bonds worth USD 150 mn (c.EGP 2.8 bn), as part of a wider USD 600 mn securitization program, with CIB managing the program, according to a press release (pdf) today.

HAPPENING NOW- El Sisi is headed to the Gulf: President Abdel Fattah El Sisi is landing in Oman today where he will meet Sultan Haitham bin Tariq. The trip comes as part of a GCC tour that will see him also travel to Bahrain to meet King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, according to Ittihadiya.

ALSO- The House Economic Committee is expected today to wrap its discussions on the contentious amendments to the Competition Act (also known as the Antitrust Act), which give greater powers to the Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA) to regulate M&As. This follows a week of discussions that saw officials from the central bank, the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA), the EGX, and the Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA) iron out differences of opinion on the proposed amendments.

The main sticking point being ironed out: The fees the ECA would collect for looking into proposed M&A transactions. The ECA had originally proposed raising its fees to 0.025% of the total transaction value, or the value of the assets during the last full fiscal year before announcing a planned transaction, whichever is higher. It would have capped the fees at EGP 1 mn per transaction. The original law stipulates that the ECA receive EGP 10k per transaction.

What’s next? Once the committee’s done with discussions, it is expected to prepare its report on the amendments and debates, before sending them to be discussed in a House-wide plenary session.

ALSO TODAY– Our friends over at Amcham are holding their annual general meeting today at the St. Regis Cairo Hotel, where Finance Minister Mohamed Maait is addressing the gathering.

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THE BIG STORY ABROAD- NATO wants to beef up its military resources by a whopping 650% in what Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg describes as the “biggest overhaul of collective defense and deterrence since the Cold War.” The alliance will ramp up its high-readiness forces to well over 300k, from about 40k troops now. The story is everywhere in the foreign press, including CNBC, AFP, Reuters and the Financial Times.

** CATCH UP QUICK on the top stories from today’s EnterpriseAM:

• The Madbouly government has inked a contract to buy 180k tons of wheat from India, which should be heading our way soon, Supply Minister Ali El Moselhy said at a presser yesterday.
• PIF has its eyes on our tourism and aluminum sectors: The Saudi sovereign wealth fund could be snagging a “significant” stake in the new hotels company made up of several merged state hotels and in EGX-listed Egypt Aluminum (EgyptAlum).
• Etisalat Egypt becomes etisalat by e&: UAE-based telecom giant e& (formerly known as Etisalat Group) has extended its corporate brand makeover to its Egyptian telecom operations, which will now be known as etisalat by e&.

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FOR TOMORROW- Key stats from OPEC: The oil cartel will release its annual statistical bulletin tomorrow, according to a press release. The flagship publication provides data on the global hydrocarbons industry, with a focus on the 13 OPEC member countries. Market watchers will be paying close attention to the figures this year, given rising energy prices brought on by a major supply-demand imbalance, the ongoing energy crisis in Europe, and ever-louder calls to transition away from polluting fossil fuels.

???? CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

The deadline for companies to submit bids for the redevelopment of the National Democratic Party headquarters is this Thursday, 30 June.

The government’s fuel pricing committee will likely meet to review fuel prices as part of its quarterly review sometime next week.

The national dialogue to set Egypt’s political and economic roadmap will also kick off next week. President Abdel Fattah El Sisi had called for the dialogue in April. Check out our explainer on the dialogue, its agenda, participants, and targeted outcomes here.

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

☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- Expect a daytime high of 37°C tomorrow in the capital city before the mercury falls to 22°C at night, our favorite weather app tells us.

Looking for an EV? Your pocket won’t like it: Auto makers have been hiking prices on EVs in the past few months due to a surge in battery-material expenses, The Wall Street Journal reported. Several manufacturers, including General Motors, Tesla, Ford, Motor Co, Rivian Automotive and Lucid Group have raised prices on select EVs. Overall, the average price of a vehicle in the US jumped 22% y-o-y in May to around USD 54k, according to J.D. Power. Meanwhile, regular fossil fuel cars have only 14% y-o-y to around USD 44k.

This comes despite investments by the industry in EV development doubling since 2020. Around USD 526 bn are expected to be spent by auto makers towards the transition to EVs until 2026, consulting firm AlixPartners told WSJ.

Blame it on commodities price inflation: The sticker shock comes as companies attempt to offset the growing cost of raw materials for their vehicle. Lithium, nickel and cobalt prices have nearly doubled since before the pandemic hit, AlixPartners said.

But auto makers aren’t worried about the impact of sticker prices on consumers, arguing that demand for models introduced to the market has been stronger than previously forecast by the companies. “The demand for EVs right now is extremely robust at Ford. So we have the [chance], we believe, for pricing,” Ford Chief Executive Jim Farley told analysts in April.

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SURVEY- EMs are better than developed countries at saving: Conventional wisdom had it that staying locked at home would help people lower their spending. The reality shows that more than half of consumers didn’t build up their savings during the pandemic, found a YouGov survey that was shared exclusively with Bloomberg. The survey looked at 20k adults in 18 countries with 51% of survey takers saying they did not build up their savings. One interesting finding we found was that emerging economies saved up better during the pandemic.

Emerging markets were much smarter about saving: Indonesia, was the country whose citizens topped up their savings the most, with 64% of those surveyed found to have saved up. Singapore, India and China were among the top five countries that built up their savings on average, at an average of 54-58%.

Same can’t be said for developed economies: In a shocker, Germany (with its reputation for prudent spending) saved the least during the pandemic, with only 39% of survey takers reporting a rise in net savings. Italy, UAE, Canada and Poland rounded up the top 5 worst savers, with a combined 40-43%.

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Rwanda will soon start producing mRNA covid-19 vaccines for Africa after the country commenced construction of a vaccine manufacturing facility in cooperation with Germany’s BioNTech last week, according to the East African. The facility is expected to produce 50 mn covid-19 vaccines annually, with the first doses to hit the market next year, while also manufacturing other meds in a separate “BioNTainer” — BioNTech’s modular container prototypes.

Egypt is also on course to begin manufacturing mRNA vaccines: Egypt was chosen along with five other African countries to receive the technology to produce mRNA covid-19 vaccines under a World Health Organization vaccine hub initiative, which aims to “support manufacturers in low- and middle-income countries to produce their own vaccines.” However, Rwanda might get to it first as mRNA vaccines are unlikely to begin rolling off of Egypt’s production lines “until at least 2024.”

???? ON THE TUBE TONIGHT-
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Beloved Rowan Atkinson (of Mr. Bean fame) makes a comeback in new Netflix series Man Vs Bee: Atkinson is back with his hilarious antics as he plays Trevor — a bumbling father trying to prove that he’s capable of taking responsibility for his daughter after a divorce. Trevor gets offered a job to house sit a posh tech-enabled mansion that predictably doesn’t go very well. During the job, a bee enters the house and drives Trevor a bit crazy and a lot of the show sees him fixated on trying to kill it. Each episode is under 20 minutes long and features Trevor as he attempts to take care of the house, but ends up making a huge mess of things. There’s a sweet parallel plotline where he tries to connect with his daughter and find a way to be in her life post-divorce. Atkinson plays a similar character to Mr. Bean, but with a bit more dialogue. The show is great to put on while having lunch and is sure to make you laugh. Check out the trailer before you give it a go (watch, runtime: 01:32).

⚽ In the Egyptian League tonight: Pharco will play against Alexandria’s Al Ittihad while El Gouna will play against Eastern Company, both at 7pm. Meanwhile, Future and Al Gaish will compete at 9:30pm.

IN OTHER FOOTBALL NEWS- Portuguese coach Paulo Sousa could likely succeed Ehab Galal as Egypt’s national team coach. Galal was dismissed after just four months (three games) after the team’s recent back-to-back defeats, Kingfut reports.

???? OUT AND ABOUT-
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The Austrian Cultural Forum Cairo is holding a screening tonight at 7pm of the 2021 WW1 crime thriller Hinterland, directed by Oscar-winning director Stefan Ruzowitzky.

Shaabi experimentalist Abo Sahar is launching his new album ‘Sahra’ tonight at Cairo Jazz Club at 8pm.

The Good Kind exhibition is ongoing at Founders Spaces in Downtown Cairo, with the artwork depicting people’s relationships with Earth’s flora and fauna as well as the natural world. The exhibit is organized by Gyptian Exhibitions and ALEXBANK and will continue until Thursday.

???? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

Popular UK restaurant chain, Dishoom's first cookbook, Dishoom: From Bombay With Love, takes you on a journey of the diverse history of Mumbai (formerly Bombay), with snacks, meals and refreshments that once tantalized foodies at Irani cafés that once filled Bombay. The barrier breaking Irani cafés were opened in the early 20th century by Zoroastrian immigrants and were one of the first places in Bombay where people of any religion, background, or class were able to sit down for a meal or cup of chai together. At their peak in the 1960s, there were almost four hundred cafes, but today fewer than thirty remain. The book has over 100 recipes from Parsi, Muslim, Hindu and Christian cuisines running the gamut from Black Daal, to Jackfruit Biryani, Chicken Ruby and Lamb Raan.

E-waste is a growing problem worldwide. Mining our old gadgets for scarce minerals might be part of the solution. Electronics ditched around the world in 2021 weighed some 57.4 mn tonnes — outweighing the Great Wall of China. The figure is expected to rise nearly 30% to 74 mn tonnes by 2030. And as key elements used in the production of many electronics become more scarce, electronic waste (e-waste) poses a major environmental problem.

E-waste collection is still dismally low: Not even 20% of global e-waste — from smartphones to fridges, TVs and kettles — is currently collected for recycling, according to the BBC. The rest largely ends up in landfill. Total e-waste is estimated to be worth some USD 62.5 bn, according to a 2019 World Economic Forum report. That means we’re throwing away some USD 50 bn annually in the form of e-waste.

Exacerbating the problem: Tech with short life spans + the rapid pace of development. Some electronics manufacturers deliberately design products to have short lifespans and limited options for repair to spur sales (a phenomenon known as ‘planned obsolescence.’) In other cases, better products are arriving on the market all the time. “Fast mobile phone development, for example, has led to a market dependency on rapid replacement of older devices,” Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Forum Director-General Pascal Leroy told the BBC.

The upshot: We could run out of the elements used in smartphone manufacturing. Silver, arsenic, and indium — a component of transistors, microchips and solar panels — are among the dozens of materials used in electronics that are becoming increasingly scarce as demand for technology rises.

The global commodities squeeze hasn’t helped. One example: The price of nickel, which is a key component in lithium-ion electric vehicle batteries, has more than doubled since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

We could bypass some in-demand materials entirely. Some researchers are designing solar panels that bypass indium, in anticipation of future shortages thanks to the boom in mobile phones. Some scientists say our indium mines (among others) could run dry within a century, the BBC reports.

But we could also look to discarded gadgets for our mineral needs. That will mean boosting recycling infrastructure, investing in more sustainable manufacturing processes, and supporting chemical scientists’ research on how best “progress methods of separating critical raw materials from electronic waste for recycling purposes," according to Professor Tom Welton, former president of the UK’s Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC).

Some people are still hesitant to recycle their e-waste — especially personal devices: Some 40 mn electronic devices are sitting idly in drawers in the UK, according to a 2020 RSC study — partly because of privacy concerns over the data stored on them. There’s also limited access and awareness about e-waste recycling drop off points.

Manufacturers need to step up and take responsibility: “Manufacturers and retailers need to take more responsibility. Like 'take-back' schemes, meaning people can return their electronics to a retailer and be assured they will be recycled securely,” the RSC’s Elizabeth Ratcliffe told BBC radio.

Some government and citizen-based initiatives have been working to help with e-waste recycling in the local market: E-waste management startups like RecycloBekia and E-Tadweer help dispose of these unwanted electronics. The ICT Ministry’s Green ICT Strategy, meanwhile, aims to raise awareness on e-waste management, “reducing the adverse environmental impacts resulting from the expansion of using ICT devices.”

But there’s still a long way to go: Egypt produces an estimated 90k tonnes of e-waste a year, 58% of which comes from the private sector, 23% from households, and 19% from the public sector, according to 2021 figures. But we only had seven recycling facilities for e-waste as of last year, with only 5-10% of the volume of recycled e-waste being handled by the private sector.