PM — Some light electrical currents to the brain can improve memory recall

Good afternoon, wonderful people, and happy almost-THURSDAY. There are some interesting developments happening here in Omm El Donia that we’re keeping an eye on today as we wait to see how things pan out.

THE BIG STORY TODAY

Central Bank of Egypt Governor Hassan Abdalla is meeting with Trade and Industry Minister Ahmed Samir and senior bankers, marking Abdalla’s first meeting with senior officials since being tapped for the position last week, replacing Tarek Amer.

THE BIG STORY ABROAD

There isn’t any single story topping headlines in the international business press, but many of them are in keeping with a general energy theme. Japan is shifting back to nuclear power amid an energy crunch, with its prime minister saying it could even look at building new nuclear plants, according to the Financial Times. Meanwhile, the UK is well on track to keep its pledge to cut off fuel imports as part of sanctions it imposed against Russia, with the Office of National Statistics saying the UK imported zero Russian fuel in June, Reuters reports. The Wall Street Journal is also taking note of crude oil prices climbing again today on expectations that OPEC+ could move to cut production.

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HAPPENING NOW- Cyprus’ Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Environment Minister Costas Kadis is in Cairo for a meeting with Oil Minister Tarek El Molla to discuss preparations for the upcoming COP27 summit in Sharm El Sheikh this November, according to state-run MENA.

Speaking of the run-up to COP27: Climate action goals cannot be decoupled from a holistic development framework that also prioritizes human capital development, including raising living standards and focusing on inclusive economic growth, IMF Executive Director and the UN’s Climate Change High Level Champion said in a roundtable discussion earlier this week (pdf).

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

• Private equity outfit Ezdehar Management has acquired a controlling 60% stake in retail supermarket chain Zahran Market through its Mid-Cap Fund II.
• Remittances hit a record high for the second year running in FY 2021-2022, rising 1.6% y-o-y to USD 31.9 bn.
• Egypt-born adtech startup ArabyAds secured USD 30 mn in a pre-Series B round from pan-African investment platform AfricInvest.

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???? CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

PSA #1- Climate tech entrepreneurs have one month to apply to the global ClimaTech Run competition: Tech startups that address climate and environmental issues have until 22 September to apply for the competition, which offers startups a top award of USD 100k and the chance to present their product at COP27, according to a cabinet statement. The competition is hosted by USAID-backed Business Egypt and backed by the international cooperation, environment and communication ministries.

PSA #2- Your deadline to catch a 65% break off late payment fines for your taxes is coming up next Wednesday, 31 August. The waiver applies to late payment fees for customs tariffs, income, real estate, and sales taxes, VAT, and stamp duties among others. The remaining 35% of your due payments will need to be paid before next March.

☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- Expect a daytime high of 39°C tomorrow and a nighttime low of 24°C, according to our favorite weather app.

Drying rivers are bringing World War II shipwrecks to the surface: European rivers are coughing up ancient relics and shipwrecks dating back to World War II, as extreme temperatures are causing droughts across the continent, the New York Times reports. Aside from the resurfaced relics, these droughts — causing European rivers to record their lowest water levels over the past century — have also been disturbing ship traffic. Over the past few weeks, droughts hitting the US, Europe, and China are having a dire impact on factory operations, agricultural production, with mns in risk of blackout and the Middle East is facing a threat of water scarcity and drought and Chinese hydropower dams running dry.

What has resurfaced? The foundation of a 2k-year-old bridge in Rome, the Spanish Stonehenge — officially called the Dolmen of Guadalperal — and an abandoned Spanish village which has spent years under water. As for the ships unveiled, they were part of Nazi Germany’s fleet and the German Navy had sunken them in 1944 so the Soviet Army doesn’t get its hands on them. The expected cost of removing the vessels stands at some USD 30 mn, according to the NYT.

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Electrical stimulation of specific areas in the brain may hold promise for improving memory in seniors, according to new research published by Boston University in Nature Neuroscience, which the Wall Street Journal picked up. Zapping the parietal and prefrontal cortexes of the brain with weak high and low frequency currents improved short term and long term memory recall in healthy older adults, the research showed. The participants whose parietal cortices (which is in the upper back region of the brain) were stimulated were better able to recall words from the end of a list of 20 words, while those whose prefrontal cortex (at the front of the brain) showed better recall of words from the beginning of the list. The participants showed improved short- and long-term memory for one month after the experiment, the research team said, although they caveat that more studies are needed to determine just how long the improvements can last.

???? ON THE TUBE TONIGHT-
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How the youngest self-made female b’naire lost it all in a flash: Hulu’s limited series The Dropout tells the early story of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes (played by Amanda Seyfried), a university dropout who styled herself after Steve Jobs and led a blood testing startup on claims of revolutionizing lab testing. The series is a mind-blowing portrayal of a leading American con artist, showing viewers the early age experiences that partially motivated Holmes’ deceptions and lies. Many of the characters appearing in the mini series are real people involved in the real story, which led to Holmes’ conviction earlier this year on multiple charges, including misleading investors and patients over the accuracy of her firm’s blood-testing technology. Seyfried’s uncanny portrayal of Holmes has helped her secure an Emmy nomination for lead actress in a limited series. You can stream The Dropout on Disney+, or catch the trailer here (watch, runtime: 2:25)

⚽Not a lot of football action tonight: Al Ahly plays against Enppi at 8pm in a game of a foregone conclusion after Zamalek grabbed the league title earlier this week following a 1-1 draw against Alexandria’s Ittihad. An earlier game sees Ismaily playing against Eastern Company at 5:30pm.

And a club friendly that won’t be too boring: Barcelona plays against Manchester City at 9:30pm.

???? OUT AND ABOUT-
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Get your dose of nostalgia at Room Art Space in Garden City, where the Sweet Sound Band will hit the stage at 9pm tonight to play a mix of some oldies and more recent hits.

If oldies aren’t your vibe, El Mariachi Trio-Quintet has a classic, flamenco, and acoustic rock night at El Sawy Culturewheel from 7:30-11pm tonight.

Alternatively, head over to Cairo Jazz Club in Agouza for Top of The Pops: Afrobeats & Reggaeton, courtesy of Bubblegum Kollectiv. The night begins at 8pm.

???? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

It’s the main ingredient in many of the world’s most popular dishes from pizza and spaghetti sauce to chicken tikka masala, but how much do you really know about the tomato? Probably not very much. Ten Tomatoes that Changed the World author William Alexander is neither a farmer nor a historian or chef. He’s just a man that was curious about tomatoes and took a deep dive into the crop’s micro history to reveal how the once shunned fruit or vegetable (major point of contention) became a staple in households all over the world. The search for the answer took Williams across continents to South America where tomatoes were a common ingredient in Aztec cuisine (think ancient salsa) then across the pond to Italy where the coveted San Marzano variety is grown. The book is full of adventure and humor and manages to strike the perfect cord between being entertaining and informative.

The EGX30 fell 0.3% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 1.32 bn (37.6% above the 90-day average). Foreign investors were net sellers. The index is down 15.4% YTD.

In the green: Rameda (+2.9%), Housing & Development Bank (+1.8%) and Alexandria Containers (+1.5%).

In the red: Palm Hills Development (-2.1%), Heliopolis Housing (-2.0%) and Sidi Kerir Petchem (-1.9%).

The sky-high cost of fertilizer is pushing farmers to the brink and further straining African food security: Fertilizer prices have increased by at least 30% since the start of 2022, besides another 80% surge registered last year, according to World Bank figures. These rising prices pose significant challenges for food producers and consumers across the continent already faced with a shortage of at least 30 mn tons of food, including staples such as wheat, corn, and soybeans.

Producers of nitrogen-based fertilizers took a big hit because of the Russia-Ukraine war: Nitrogen-based fertilizers, which account for some two thirds of the nutrients used to grow crops and rely heavily on gas for their production, have seen prices surge since the onset of the war in Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions placed on Russia in response, the Financial Times reports. This has been especially troubling for European fertilizer manufacturers, who have struggled to secure alternative sources of natural gas and have typically relied on Russian gas to produce 15% of global crop nutrient supplies.

Further down the supply chain, farmers are slashing their use of fertilizers as a result: Globally, fertilizer usage among farmers has been significantly scaled down in response to the skyrocketing costs. Even though fertilizer use in Africa is relatively low compared to the rest of the world, the impact has been even more pronounced — countries like the Ivory Coast and Cameroon have seen fertilizer costs surge more than 50% since February — and it is precisely because growing agents are less widely used in food production in Africa than in other parts of the world that even a modest reduction in fertilizer use would pose significant problems for many of these farms.

Food staples are at increasing risk: The high cost of fertilizer alone is expected to be responsible for a 1.8% reduction in the global production of corn, wheat, rice, and soybean in the 2022-2023 crop year, according to commodities research firm Gro. In Kenya, coffee, tea and flower production is projected to fall by some 6% and could trigger a loss of some 0.8% of GDP this year, according to a study by the International Food Policy Research Institute.

This could spell even more trouble for food security and potentially trigger unrest, some analysts suggest. The combination of reduced agricultural productivity caused by the scaling back of fertilizers and the wider climatic pressures already threatening crop yields suggest that we may be in store for greater levels of food insecurity and even social unrest. “The consequences of a looming food crisis may be more pronounced than during the 2007-08 global food crisis and the 2010-11 food price hikes that contributed to the Arab spring,” the FT cites McKinsey consultants as saying.

And it looks like we’ll be stuck with high fertilizer costs for the foreseeable future: As long as energy prices remain high, fertilizer prices are expected to remain prohibitively expensive for many farmers on the continent. For now, it looks like we’re in high-cost fertilizer territory for the next five-12 months, the World Bank’s senior agricultural economist and head of the commodities unit tells the FT.

This is especially consequential for Egypt where food security remains a challenge: Egypt faces a moderate level of hunger, ranking 61 of 117 countries, according to the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP). “Food affordability, quality and safety remain challenges as Egypt continues to rely on global markets for more than half of its staples,” the WFP says. The problem is that food prices — which were up 22.3% on an annual basis in July — are likely to continue facing pressure as fertilizer costs remain high.

But we’re also seeing IFIs pledging support to African food producers: The World Bank has earlier this year said that it would deploy USD 30 bn over the course of 15 months starting in May to combat the “devastating effects” of rising food insecurity around the world. This comes in addition to the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) USD 1.5 bn facility announced earlier this year to help African countries avert a “looming food crisis” — part of which would includes providing 20 mn African smallholder farmers with seeds and fertilizers to help them produce around 38 mn tons of food. Egypt is expected to be getting USD 174 mn of that pie in addition to a separate USD 97 mn from AfDB that will in part be responsible for offering 30-50% tax breaks for green hydrogen and ammonia producers to increase fertilizer production.

So have fertilizer producers and rich countries: Norway’s Yara and Morocco’s OCP have said that they would be offering discounts and donations of their fertilizers to African farmers this year. The US has also pledged some USD 1 bn to help improve the region’s food security–USD 50 mn of which is coming to Egypt.