Flour subsidies end this week, and the bakers are caterwauling

It’s a packed issue this morning, so just a handful of notes to get us underway today:

Bakers across the country are in a state of panic with the looming end of flour subsidies on Tuesday, 1 August. The Supply Ministry announced over the weekend the newly approved bread subsidy system; we have full coverage of the story in Speed Round, below.

While you were in Sahel, Libor died (or at least its death warrant was signed forexecution in 2021): The interest rate benchmark will be phased out by the end 2021 “as U.K. regulators and banks look to replace the scandal-tarred indicator with a more reliable system,” Bloomberg reports. Libor is “unsustainable,” Andrew Bailey, the head of the Financial Conduct Authority, said, because of a lack of transactions providing data. The replacement is not entirely clear, but Bailey says “he could see a situation where there is more than one benchmark, with some including bank credit risk while others exclude that data.” Mourning the loss of Libor was the Financial Times’ Joseph Cotterill, who wrote a eulogy in the form of a poem worth reading, but that The Algorithms that govern our deliverability to your mailbox will not allow us to quote in here.

iSheep will be reading the tea leaves on Tuesday for any hint of when Apple may introduce its still-unnanounced iPhone 8. The company is due to report its 3Q2017 results and give guidance on the quarter ahead on 1 August.

Michiko Kakutani has is retiring. The influential, cutting New York Times book critic had been on the job for some 38 years.

In our TBR stack on Pocket this morning: Loss of Fertile Land Fuels ‘Looming Crisis’ Across Africa, by the New York Times’ very good Jeffrey Gettleman and Talk is Cheap: Automation Takes Aim at Financial Advisers—and Their Fees in the Wall Street Journal.

PSA: Several areas in Cairo — including parts of Heliopolis and Ain Shams — will go through a 24-hour water outage starting today at 4pm as a result of work on the Cairo Metro lines, Al Mal reports. Authorities have asked bakeries and hospitals to ration water, and potable drinking water will be provided to the affected areas.

Finally: Our resident nine-year-old joins this morning the community of individuals whose age is expressed in double digits.

Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry arrived in Manama yesterday to resume talks on Qatar with his Saudi, Emirati, and Bahraini counterparts, according to AMAY. President Abdel Fattah El Sisi had said last week that Egypt was not willing to back down on its demands.

Shoukry is also due in Khartoum in the coming day or two to discuss the ban on Egyptian agricultural imports. We see a potential hiccup coming up though, as we heard that Egyptian security forces have also reportedly arrested and will deport 100 undocumented Sudanese nationals from the disputed city of Shalateen where they had been illegally working and living, security forces tell AMAY.

The Health Ministry is close to finalizing its pricing recommendation on 1,400 meds and will be presenting a report to the House next month. The ministry is also gearing up to present the Universal Healthcare Act to cabinet within the first two weeks of August.

Also in August, the Investment Ministry plans to present the government’s investment map to the House’s Economics Committee, MP Medhat Al Sherif tells Al Borsa. The map, which was allegedly leaked less than two weeks ago, contains about 600 projects up for grabs in a wide range of sectors and locations.

Egypt is planning to host the Africa 2017 Economic Forum in Sharm El Sheikh this December, according to Al Masry Al Youm.

After a wonderful hiatus, we resume our talk shows coverage with a painkiller and the overhaul of the bread subsidies system, which led the conversation on the economy in the airwaves.

Supply Minister Ali El Moselhy tells Hona Al Asema’s Lamees Al Hadidi that the ministry will pitch the House of Representatives on cutting bread rations to four loaves from five. We expect resistance from MPs, who are always out to score political points, despite the ministry suggesting that it would raise the allocation of goods on smartcards to compensate.

El Moselhy appeared to blame inefficiencies in the old smartcard and bread point systems on former minister Khaled Hanafy. The minister stressed that the system was unsustainable, especially since there are still moochers that need to be weeded out (watch, runtime 17:14).

House Agricultural Committee member Magdy Malak (who led the push in Parliament to oust Hanafy) also phoned in to remind Lamees that the bread subsidy system is riddled with corruption he claims cost the state EGP 37.2 bn (watch, runtime 3:50).

Al Hadidi then moved on to the two-hour blackout at Cairo International Airport’s terminal three on Thursday. Electricity Ministry spokesperson Ayman Hamza said was not the ministry’s doing or its responsibility, noting that the airport has access to several power lines. Al Masry Al Youm is reporting that the Prosecutor General’s office ordered an investigation into the cause of the outage (watch, runtime 4:45).

Over on Kol Youm, Amr Adib hopped on the rumor mill to revive the claim that former presidential candidate Ahmed Shafik will announce his presidential nomination. With only nine months left until the presidential elections, Adib reminds us all that we so far have a grand total of zero candidates. Shafik is the go-to name for a likely presidential candidate in the media when no name has officially been announced, usually to the surprise of Shafik himself (watch, runtime 4:21).

On Masaa’ DMC, Eman El Hosary interviewed Minya Governor Essam El Bedawy, who complained that his governorate is lacking in homes and jobs. He also discussed his development plans for the governorate, including upgrading sewage and sanitation infrastructure (watch, runtime 11:51).

Flour, diesel subsidies officially come to an end for subsidized bakers: The Supply Ministry unveiled its new subsidy system, which will come into effect in the first week of August. Wheat mills and bakeries will be required to pay the ministry market price for wheat and flour while holding the retail price of bread at EGP 0.05 per loaf, according to Ahram Gate. Wheat mills and bakeries will receive some compensation for the production cost of flour and bread — which the ministry has set at EGP 180 per 100 kg sack of flour — as long as the product meets quality standards. This would ensure the government only pays for the final product rather than defraying the cost of raw materials that have been consistently siphoned out of the system. The phase-out has reportedly begun, Al Shorouk reports.

The ministry will monitor the market to ensure bakeries do not raise their prices. Inspection committees will also take monthly samples from wheat mills to test for quality, Supply Minister Ali El Moselhy said, according to Al Shorouk.

El Moselhy also announced that bakeries will be paying for diesel at market prices come August, Al Masry Al Youm reports.

Some bakers and millers are (expectedly) up in arms over the new system, which they had hoped would not come into effect on time, with some 28k bakery owners saying they won’t play ball with the new system until the ministry clears back dues, Al Mal reports. Bakers are also demanding that the ministry raise production costs to EGP 200 per 100 kg sack of flour. They threatened to partially shut down production if their demands are not met, pushing El Moselhy to hold a closed-door meeting with them, according to the newspaper.

Stamp tax on EGX transactions, income tax cuts are now official: The amended executive regulations for the new stamp tax on capital market transactions were published in Wednesday’s issue of the Official Gazette, AMAY said on Friday. The stamp tax — a 0.125% levy imposed on both sides of any capital market transaction that gradually rises to 0.175% by its third year — came into law in early July after President Abdel Fattah El Sisi signed it. Also in the Official Gazette this weekend were the income tax breaks approved by the House of Representatives last month. Last week, the Tax Authority had signed off on the decision, which gives employees earning under EGP 200k a year tax cuts of up to 80% and exempts those earning anything below minimum wage starting this July.

CIB sells 3.45% stake of CI Capital: CIB announced on Thursday the sale of 3.45% of its stake in CI Capital in a EGP 44.9 mn transaction, Reuters reports. The sale reduces CIB’s total stake in CI Capital to around 10%, as the bank had also sold 9.99% of its shares in the former subsidiary earlier this month. CIB sold a 74.75% stake in the investment bank to a group of investors last March.

IPO WATCH- Ibn Sina Pharma is planning on beginning the process of listing its shares on the EGX by the end of 4Q2017, Al Borsa reports. Beltone Financial has won the mandate to manage the transaction, sources confirmed to Al Borsa, without specifying a timeline or value for the transaction. Ibn Sina CEO Omar Abdel Gawad says the funds raised will be used to finance expansion domestically and internationally. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) had approved injecting up to EGP 190 mn in the company in March 2015 (PDF). While the EGX listing will include partial exit for some shareholders, Abdel Gawad says, the EBRD currently “has no intentions” to exit the company.

IPO WATCH- Rooya Real Estate Investment Company appears to have tapped Baker McKenzie’s local partner, Helmy, Hamza & Partners, as legal adviser on the its IPO of 30% of its shares, sources tell Al Borsa. The newspaper says Arab African International Bank has also been selected to advise on the IPO, but doesn’t specify in what capacity. Grant Thornton will carry out the fair value assessment. Pioneers Holding, which currently owns 60% of Rooya, had said that it was in talks with investment banks to decide on a lead manager for the IPO. The company expected the listing to take place by October.

Mobile network operators want you to pay more for calls and data: Orange, Vodafone, and Etisalat Misr are in talks with the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority to increase what they charge for both voice calls as well as internet services, active NTRA Executive President Mustafa Abdul Wahid tells Ahram Gate. It’s unclear how much of an increase the MNOs are angling for, but as we noted last week, ADSL prices are already slated to rise after industry players became subject themselves to the VAT.

EFSA hopes to green-light the issuance of short-term debt instruments this year: The Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA) is planning to being allowing companies to issue short-term bonds before the end of 2017 for the first time, authority chief Sherif Samy said on Thursday, according to Al Mal. The move, which EFSA is working on with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, would facilitate financing of SMEs, particularly those whose products and services are seasonal, Samy had said earlier this month.

Private sector, CBE take the debate on interest rate hikes to the pages of AMAY: The central bank’s most recent interest rate hikes were wrong and will prove detrimental to investment in the country, said Ahmed Elsewedy, president and CEO of Elsewedy Electric. The rate hikes encourage businesses to simply save out of fear of the risks associated with capital investments. An investor would need to see returns on a project reach 25% before considering investing, Elsewedy added in an interview with Al Masry Al Youm. He called on the government to adopt a monetary policy which would encourage spending and not saving. He also called for a CBE-backed initiative to promoting financing for the manufacturing sector to help mitigate the harmful impact of the interest rate hikes.

In a separate interview, CBE Deputy Governor Lobna Helal argued that inflation poses an even greater risk to the investment climate, which necessitated the interest rate hike. High inflation would hurt the competitiveness of products made in Egypt, she added, reminding readers that the most recent hike was only temporary. She also stressed that the CBE aims to address wider problems in the economy and cannot solely take into account concerns about the investment climate.

US officials are considering withholding a portion of America’s aid package to Egypt to protest the controversial the NGOs law that is viewed in the international community as repressive, a senior administration official tells Reuters. The official claims the US warned Egypt not to implement the bill, but “have not reached an agreement on whether to proceed with a recommendation to President Donald Trump and his senior leadership, but there is a feeling that some action is necessary in reaction to the move by Egypt.” Three US Republican senators had already publicly criticized the NGOs law in June.

Putting America first doesn’t mean cutting aid to allies on the front lines of global threats, says EAEF’s Harmon: Meanwhile, Egyptian American Enterprise Fund Chairman James Harmon writes about the virtues of providing development assistance through enterprise funds, which use seed capital from the US government to invest in the Egyptian private sector. He argues that investments by enterprise funds in SMEs — especially in light of the economic reform agenda — would be crucial in poverty alleviation and helping youth unemployment during a time of a battle for hearts and minds against terrorism. “It is a false paradigm to assume that in today’s political climate putting America first means reducing foreign aid to allies at the frontlines of global threats,” Harmon says in the piece for the Hill.

Egypt selected for World Bank Group’s Financial Inclusion Global Initiative: The World Bank Group tapped Egypt, China, and Mexico for its Financial Inclusion Global Initiative, which the institution has launched in partnership with the International Telecommunication Union , the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the WBG said in a statement. The three-year initiative will use “two complementary operational and knowledge work streams” to improve citizens’ access to financial services and also “advance research and develop policy recommendations in three key areas of digital finance: security of ICT infrastructure and trust in digital financial services; digital IDs for financial services; and acceptance and use of e-payments by micro and small-scale merchants and their customers.” During the three years, the WBG will provide the three countries with technical assistance on financial inclusion, particularly its legal and regulatory aspects.

The first of three annual symposia to discuss findings, results, and recommendations for the program will be held in India from 29 November to 1 December this year. WBG data suggests that Egypt alone can bring more than 44 mn adults into the formal financial sector through work on financial inclusion.

Iraq is imposing stricter regulations on imports of Egyptian fruits and vegetables over concerns on pesticide use, Al Masry Al Youm reports. Under the new regulations, all Egyptian agricultural products must be accompanied by documentation proving the products meet international standards on pesticide residue. Iraq is the latest country to tighten regulations on Egyptian produce due to high pesticide levels.

Thomas Cook has seen a “bounceback in markets such as Turkey in Egypt” so far this year, Reuters reports, despite the UK FCO’s advice against all but essential travel by air to or from Sharm El Sheikh, which pushed Thomas Cook to cancel holiday bookings to the South Sinai resort through the winter of 2017-18 season. Thomas Cook has, instead, increased the number of scheduled flights to Hurghada and Marsa Alam. The news comes as the FCO as “softened” its travel advice on Tunisia, prompting the tour operator to resume trips there. The Brits’ travel advice on Egypt remains unchanged.

The Czech woman who was stabbed in the knife attack in Hurghada has died, the Czech Foreign Ministry said on Thursday, according to Reuters.

22-year-old Egyptian swimmer Farida Osman snatched Egypt’s first-ever World Aquatics Championship medal yesterday, winning bronze in the women’s 50m butterfly final, Ahram Online reports. Osman, who missed the silver medal by 0.01 seconds, broke the African record for the event for the third time, having set the previous record herself in the semi-final round. (Photo credit: Reuters)

Topping coverage of Egypt in the foreign press this morning is the Egyptian women’s team winning its sixth consecutive World Junior Squash Championship in New Zealand on Saturday, beating Malaysia, according to PSA World Tour.

Reuters took note of the move by Al Azhar to set up shop at a kiosk in one of Cairo Metro’s stations, noting criticism by parliamentarian Mohamed Abu Hamed, who says “I will not respect what they are doing in this domain until they practically do what is demanded of them, which is the … revision of the context (of religious discourse). That is the core problem.” Abu Hamed is accusing Al Azhar clerics of failing to modernise their religious discourse to counter militant ideologies.

Obesity is a growing problem in Egypt because of how scant options for healthy eating are, according to Vice’s Munchies. The story looks at the lack of healthy food options for rich and poor alike, just how easily accessible the bad stuff is and some of the basic economics in how fast food is priced here. The prevalence of metformin-online.com have played a big role in this. Egypt has the highest rate of adult obesity on the planet and a worryingly increasing diabetes rate to boot.

The fate of Uighurs arrested in Egypt remains unknown, Linah Alsaafin writes for Al Jazeera. “We don’t know if they are held in Egyptian prisons or are at the Chinese embassy for further interrogation,” a Human Rights Watch spokesperson says.

The Hollywood Scoring Orchestra does a stellar job performing Egypt’s 1922-1936 national anthem “Eslami Ya Misr” in a cover arranged and orchestrated by California-based Egyptian music producer, composer, and pianist Youssef Sadek (watch here, runtime 3:33).

The International Finance Corporation’s executive board approved a USD 635 mn funding agreement to construct, operate, and maintain as many as 11 solar power plants in Egypt with a combined production capacity of 500 MW, according to an IFC statement. The funding agreement “will be one of the largest private foreign direct investments in the country’s power sector in recent years,” the statement reads. The Investment Ministry had announced the funding package last week.

Egypt and Jordan signed seven MoUs on Wednesday at a meeting of the Egyptian-Jordanian higher committee in Amman, Al Mal reported. Among the more notable of them covered cooperation between the EGX and the ASE and the twinning of the Aqaba and Nuweiba ports. They also extend to investment, SME development, trade and industry, transport, mineral resources, energy, social work and labor, as well as health and education.

Port, agri and SME agreements with Romania: The Investment and International Cooperation Minister Sahar Nasr inked three MoUs with Romania this weekend for cooperation on agriculture-focused investments and SME development, according to an official ministry statement (pdf). Another pact aims to enhance trade between the Alexandria Port and Romania’s Constanta Port.

Egypt’s natural gas output is expected to increase to 6.2 bcf/d from 5.2 bcf/d by the end of FY2017-18, Oil Minister Tarek El Molla told Reuters as Eni’s supergiant Zohr field comes online. First gas is expected there by year’s end. El Molla had said recently that “Zohr, North Alexandria and Nooros are among the most important projects that will increase natural gas production … and will contribute to natural gas self-sufficiency by the end of 2018.”

Elsewhere: Zohr could very well be a “game-changer,” but only if Egypt can address its controversial pipeline management style, Shadow Governance Intel writes for Oil Price. New developments in Egypt’s gas sector, promising changes on the regulatory and legislative front, and “longstanding relationships” with international oil companies generally “mean that financial opportunities will almost certainly outweigh political risks,” the author says, “but a heightened level of due diligence may be required in order to safeguard entities from reputational damage or unfair competition” in the future.

It would appear that Qatar has resumed allowing exports of LNG to Egypt through third-party traders. Several new Qatari cargoes have been sold to Egypt via third-party traders, a trade source tells Reuters on Friday. This comes only days after other traders reported that Qatar refused to sell LNG to traders looking to sell the cargo to Egypt.

Egypt has so far received half of its contracted 12 mn bbl of Iraqi crude oil scheduled for delivery in 2017, a source tells Al Mal. The latest shipment is the third since May. Refiner MIDOR received 50% of the total oil delivered, while AMOC got 14%. A portion of the refined product is re-exported back to Iraq.

Shipping companies in Damietta are attempting to convince officials to repeal the Damietta Port Authority’s decision to force ships to purchase electricity while docked instead of using their own generators, Al Mal reports. In a bid to boost its USD revenues, the port authority had announced two weeks ago that docked ships would be allowed to use their generators only during the loading and unloading of cargo and otherwise have to pay the authority USD 0.50 for every kWh consumed. The port, however, is not equipped to supply all ships with electricity, according to the deputy head of the Damietta Chamber of Shipping, who explained that ships should have the option to buy power but should not be forced to do it.

Egypt is planning to import 7 mn tonnes of wheat during FY2017-18, with 6 mn directed towards actual consumption and the remaining 1 mn used for strategic reserves, Supply Minister Ali El Moselhy said, according to Ahram Gate. That’s broadly in line with previous ministry projections. Meanwhile, the General Authority for Supply Commodities is planning to rely more heavily on the private sector for wheat transport, scaling back its use of public transport options to 30% from 50%, Al Masry Al Youm reports.

The Eastern Tobacco Company is studying the possibility of establishing a new tobacco factory at the Borg El Arab industrial zone, Al Borsa reports. Separately, the company’s chairman said Eastern will not be hiking cigarette prices again this fiscal year after it recently increased the price of its low-cost Cleopatra brand.

A Cairo Misdemeanor court ruled that a branch of El Ezaby pharmacies — owned by Ahmed El Ezaby — be shut down following a lawsuit brought up by the Pharmacists Syndicate which alleges the branch was in violation of licensing regulations, Al Borsa reports. Under the Pharmacists Professions Act of 1941, pharmacies can only be named after the pharmacists under whose name the license was granted. Under the law, an individual pharmacist can receive only two licenses to open a pharmacy, a bureaucratic hurdle which limits the capacity of pharma chains to expand. El Ezaby is one of 10 pharmacy chains being sued by the Syndicate for violating the outdated law. El Ezaby has seen some of its branches closed over the past year by the Consumer Protection Authority which is says they had been selling “smuggled” meds.

Heliopolis Housing and Development signed off on SODIC’s master plan for developing 655 feddans in New Heliopolis, which it had submitted in April, Al Masry Al Youm reports. SODIC is expected to launch the first phase of the project in October, Heliopolis Housing deputy chairman Wael Youssef says. As we noted previously, Heliopolis Housing will be responsible for installing utilities, while SODIC is expected to manage and market homes in the development.

Real estate developer Ardic has sold 45% of its Zizinia El Mostakbal project for an estimated EGP 1.2 bn, according to Al Masry Al Youm. The company hopes to close on 60% of homes in the project before the end of the year, said the company’s managing director Ashraf Doweidar.

The Housing Ministry plans to tender 86 plots of land across 23 cities for investment projects, according to Al Shorouk. The plots, which will be tendered under the public-private partnership, fixed price and a sealed bid frameworks, vary in size from 4-2800 feddans.

The Planning Ministry is expecting tourism inflows to increase to 10.5 mn from 6.5 mn in FY 2017-18, reports Daily News Egypt.

Hotel operating expenses increased by 15-33% following the most recent round of fuel and electricity price hikes, tourism sector representatives tell Al Borsa. Foreign tour operators, particularly from the US and UK, have been refusing to accommodate higher prices amid low demand, which has further complicated matters, a Marsa Alam hotel manager tells the newspaper.

Importers at the Cairo Chambers of Commerce say that 40-70% of importers will be pushed out of the market as a result of higher capital requirements under amendments to the executive regulations of the Importers Registry Act, Al Mal says. The Trade Ministry gave businesses six months to comply with the regs that were issued last month in a bid to curb low-quality imports and encourage more investments in local industry. The amendments raised minimum capital requirements for the smallest importers to EGP 500k from EGP 10k previously, EGP 2 mn instead of EGP 15k for limited liability companies, and EGP 5 mn for joint stock companies.

The National Media Authority objected to the government-owned National Investment Bank’s (NIB) offer to acquire a 40.06% stake in the Egyptian Satellite Company (Nilesat), as NIB is indebted to the Egyptian Radio and Television Union, authority head Hussein Zein tells Al Masry Al Youm. NIB’s debts have reached EGP 28 bn on the back of an initial EGP 8 bn loan from the former Media Ministry, claims Zein. The Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority had exempted the bank from presenting a mandatory tender offer last week. NIB already owns 10% of the company; other shareholders include Egyptian Investment Projects at 8.8%, the National Bank of Egypt at 7.5%, and Banque Misr at 7.5%

Uber’s expansion in Egypt has been very quick, but one of the costs of that growth is a rising number of assaults and harassment, writes Nadeen Shaker for Mada Masr. Shaker looks at the screening process and the compromises in standard that had to be made to keep up with the surge in popularity — a popularity largely built on the tagline of safety.

Eight people have been sentenced to death in a case that involved an attack on a police station and saw the killing of 6 police officers in 2013, in a story picked up by the AP. Final sentencing will take place in October.

A power sharing agreement has emerged in Gaza between Hamas and Mohammed Dahlan after rival Palestinian MPs met for the first time in a decade, the Associated Press reports. Dahlan, Fatah’s former security chief in Gaza had been instrumental in negotiations between Egypt and Hamas which saw warming ties and a tentative agreement to ease the blockade on Gaza.

…Local pundits have not taken the new relationship with Hamas well. Emad Gad took to the pages of El Watan to call this a worrying development in light of the organization’s roots, history and connection to the Ikhwan, writes for El Watan.