Kellogg under fire • CBE reserves dip • Arab Dairy hires advisor • Travco to develop Sahl Hasheesh hotel • ERC’s Jamaran sold out • fuel subsidy reforms await election of parliament • Qalaa Holdings loss improves 67% • UK embassy suspends service • Spiderman in Cairo

WHAT WE’RE TRACKING TODAY

An Egyptian lawyer has thrown a monkey wrench at the Bisco Misr takeover deal after filing a case asking the state to block Kellogg from acquiring the company because of its “Israeli shareholders” and its “harmful products” as reported by Al Masry Al Youm. Kellogg responded in a press conference by saying it doesn’t have any major Israeli investors and that the concerns aren’t warranted because company passed Egyptian security inspections prior to submitting a bid for Bisco Misr. Kellogg has been under assault in some quarters of the Egyptian press for its alleged ties to Israel.

State-run Saudi Arabian Oil Company is selling Arab Light crude at its cheapest price in at least 14 years after cutting the official selling price to Asia by USD 1.9 / bbl making the new price USD 2 / bbl cheaper than the regional benchmark, the Dubai Oman Crudes average. It’s a clear sign that Saudi Arabia is not willing to give up global market share (especially in Asia) as we expected, and as oil prices continue to fall, the dollar is strengthening.

The Central Bank of Egypt’s net international reserves fell by USD 1.03 bn to USD 15.88 bn with foreign currencies dropping by USD 942 mn to USD 12.15 bn in November. The drop, from which the reserves are likely to fully rebound in December, came on the back of the CBE’s repayment of Qatar’s deposit, which was only partly offset by new Kuwaiti funding.

The “anniversary” of the “Arab Spring” is a week from Wednesday, marking the four-year anniversary since Mohamed Bouazizi immolated himself in Tunisia. The Middle East Editor of the Associated Press has a widely read (in the U.S.) take out this morning on the lessons of the last four years. We’d expect more of the same in the coming week.

LAST NIGHT’S TALK SHOWS

Youssef El Housseiny brought up the topic of the President’s alleged decline in popularity.

“A slight decline in popularity is quite normal particularly given the frenzy that surrounded President El Sisi’s candidacy post-June 30, 2013. Ironically, some of those who were his staunchest supporters are now feeling some disappointment. But we have to put things into perspective. The pockets of criticism do not represent a significant shift in sentiment. I believe in him and I believe in his loyalty and his patriotism. I think that anyone who meets him face to face will have no doubt about his intentions. In the 3-4 meetings that I had with him along with some fellow journalists have me convinced that he is taking us down the right path,” said El Houssieny.

Ibrahim Eissa continues to be unhappy with the entire political spectrum in Egypt: “We have still not been able to get out of the mindset of the old regime. I’m not just talking about the government, I’m talking about society at large including the opposition and the activists. Those who claim that they are fighting for freedom are trying to limit the freedom of others.”

Eissa went on to conduct a lengthy phone interview with Minister of Supply and Domestic Trade Khaled Hanafy on the topic of the Damietta logistics hub. (Hanafy had earlier met President Abdelfattah El-Sisi on the same topic; note below.)

“Can we have access to the feasibility study on this project? We need to make it public so that we can have an informed debate with those who are for and against the project,” said Eissa.

“These types of things are generally not public, but perhaps a summary can be made available,” said Hanafy.

“The public needs to be informed. There has to be transparency, because at the end of the day, it is the Egyptian people who are going to finance the project,” saidEissa.

Hanafy confirmed that the project will be presented at the Sharm El Sheikh Investment Summit.

WORTH READING

Has human progress come to a (relative) standstill? We can’t agree with (and there’s really no way to prove or disprove) this article’s counterfactual conclusion: “If the pace of change had continued, we could be living in a world where Alzheimer’s was treatable, where clean nuclear power had ended the threat of climate change, where the brilliance of genetics was used to bring the benefits of cheap and healthy food to the bottom billion, and where cancer really was on the back foot.” But our disclaimer doesn’t invalidate the very interesting question posed by this article: Why has human cultural and technological progress stalled in comparison to the achievements made between 1945 and 1971? The author’s short answer: risk aversion. It’s still worth reading the whole piece and drawing your own conclusions. The golden quarter, by Michael Hanlon writing for Aeon. 3,200 words. (Read)

The New York Times offers up a detailed investigation of how at least a dozen attorneys general in US states are in bed with the energy industry. Read it, call on it the next time someone external to the region sneers about corruption being endemic to the Arab world — and then ask yourselves: Wouldn’t we be a tiny bit better-off if our press was even half as mature and intelligent as this?

SPEED ROUND

The EGX30 rose 0.79% to 9,533 points with turnover of EGP 778 mn, 11% above the 90-day average. Top gainers on the bourse included Bisco Misr (up 7.31%) and Pioneers Holding (6.45%).

Most regional markets were down slightly yesterday: Tadawul shed 0.2%, DFM was flat, ADX gained 0.3%, Qatar lost 0.8% and the KSE shed 0.8%.

Asian markets were up (barely) in trading this morning, Reuters reports.

Brent and WTI for 15 January delivery were both down by about USD 1 since yesterday, with Brent at USD 68.02 and WTI at 64.86.

Arab Dairy has hired Cairo Capital Group as its financial advisor. Al Mal cites a source close to Denmark’s Arla Foods explaining that the reason behind their withdrawal was Arab Dairy’s poor financial performance in the first nine months of 2014. Pioneers and Lactalis are still bidding for the company, with India’s VRS Food presumed to be out of the race after reportedly having not completed the due diligence process.

The Jerusalem Post reported over a week ago that intention of Daesh’s Sinai-affiliate ABM was to use the hijacked Egyptian navy ship to attack an Israeli ship and use its crew as leverage for the release of Palestinian prisoners. IHS Maritime 360 now adds that Israeli television has reported that Ansar Beit Al Maqdis had also intended to attack Israeli gas rigs. (Read)

Spiderman in Cairo: 20 and 21-year old Egyptians Hossam Atef and Atef Saad came up with an inspired art / social experiment by having chef Atef Saad dress up as Spiderman and try to go about living life in Cairo over the course of four days. From a passenger’s-eye view of Spiderman driving a tuk-tuk, to running trying to catch a public bus, to hanging upside-down in a metro car, the experiment conclusively proved that Egyptians will remain largely indifferent to any kind of insanity happening around them. The only striking exception to this, of course, was the picture of Atef being mobbed by a group of young children. (Read the photo-essay on Ahram Online, and smile)

North Korea is changing, and it’s all Naguib Sawiris’ fault: Naguib doesn’t get a personal name check, but OTMT’s venture in North Korea does in this WSJ piece looking at how Sawiris’ introduction of cellular phone technology (but not the internet) in a JV with the DPRK government is changing North Korea faster than anyone thought possible. The kicker: “North Korea has a nascent culture of programming and even startups. The problem is that, lacking access to the Internet, many of the entrepreneurs … didn’t understand how to reach consumers—or even what a marketplace is.” That hasn’t stopped waitresses in Pyongyang and border guards alike from wiling-away the hours playing the North Korean version of “Plants vs. Zombies.” (Read)

Speaking of the hermit state: North Korea has denied involvement in a recent cyberattack on Sony Pictures, but has lauded it as a “righteous deed.” According to state-run Korea Central News Agency (KCNA): “The spokesman for the Policy Department of the National Defence Commission (NDC) of the DPRK Sunday gave the following answer to the question put by KCNA as regards the fact that the south Korean puppet authorities spread a wild rumor while forcibly linking the recent extra-large hacking in the U.S. with the DPRK: … We do not know where in America the SONY Pictures is situated and for what wrongdoings it became the target of the attack nor we feel the need to know about it … We already called upon the world to turn out in the just struggle to put an end to U.S. imperialism … The hacking into the SONY Pictures might be a righteous deed of the supporters and sympathizers with the DPRK in response to its appeal. … The righteous reaction will get stronger to smash the evil doings.” Since it seems impossible to directly link to any particular page, motivated readers may find the link to the landing page here, and at the time of publication the aforementioned story was the third link on the left titled “Spokesman of Policy Department of NDC Blasts S. Korean Authorities’ False Rumor about DPRK.”

A new “Apollo moment” for space exploration: The United States and humanity at large have taken the first step to Mars: “I would describe it as the beginning of the Mars era,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said on NASA TV. The Orion capsule, designed to take humans into deep space beyond Earth’s orbit to destinations such as Mars, successfully launched and splashed down in the Pacific ocean all within the space of 4.5 hours last Friday. NBC News has a good roundup along with a video of the takeoff and splashdown all on one page. “Although there were no people aboard Orion, NASA packed a few personages in the payload — including Sesame Street characters and a Captain Kirk action figure.” (Read)

Cheap oil will make us all grow (at least those who don’t export the stuff) — or tank everyone’s economy. The WSJ’s Michael Casey argues this morning that the 39% plunge in crude futures since June “could lay the groundwork for unpredictable market shifts and increasing price swings” and, in a “worst-case scenario, oil’s selloff could ultimately result in a shock akin to the Asian currency crisis of 1997-98.” While Casey doesn’t see the doomsday scenario unfolding, he does argue that the great lesson of the Asian crisis is that “in a complex, global economy with many moving parts, a major change in one market’s price will shift the relative value of multiple investment propositions, often with unpredictable consequences.” It’s a piece worth reading, particularly when you get to his nugget about how the very real risk of a US interest rate hike next year could start choking access to finance across emerging markets — even as borrowing in USD terms becomes more expensive (see story above). The Journal’s Ian Talley, meanwhile, looks at how central bankers are now re-writing growth forecasts in the US, Europe and Japan in the believe that cheaper oil will spur their economies forward. (Read the Casey piece here and the Talley overview here)

BIS worries the strong greenback will hurt emerging markets borrowers. The Bank of International Settlements (referred to by much of the business press as the “central bankers’ bank”) warned yesterday that the increasing strength of the greenback could be bad new for EM companies with foreign debt. (Read the FT’s take or that of the WSJ, or skip straight to the BIS’ piece on the EM issue here. The landing page for the full quarterly is here)

The FT’s Borzou Daragahi seems to have beaten most of his peers to the punch with a pretty comprehensive look this morning at how “Libya’s warring parties put UN-backed talks at risk.” Talks are supposed to begin tomorrow in Libya under the auspices of the UN’s special envoy for Libya, Bernardino Leon. This may or may not be complicated by the fact that the Islamist militia known as the Libyan Revolutionaries Operations Room announced their intention yesterday to retake the Watiyah air base.

EGYPT IN THE NEWS

“Four years on, something of an Arab Winter“ runs the headline over an AP story filed late yesterday by Dan Perry and that is being widely picked up by the US press. Perry is Middle East Editor for the wire service, and writes that four years after Mohamed Bouazizi set off the so-called Arab spring, there are a handful of conclusions to be drawn:

• The elites distrust the masses (and if the masses elect Islamists, democracy can wait)
• Jihadis are no joke (they’re “at war with secular governments and moderate Muslims everywhere” and are “widely seen as a greater threat than anything as tame as a corrupt and authoritarian military regime.”)
• Monarchies survived (“Every one of the countries whose leader was toppled — Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen — had been run by authoritarian civilians backed by military power.”)
• Sunni and Shi’a don’t get along (we didn’t claim everything he had to say was trenchant…)
• No Palestine Spring (“…the occupation grinds on, and with it continues the Jewish settlement of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, each day bringing the sides closer to a single binational entity whose component pieces can no longer be ripped apart. That would be the end of the Jewish state — perhaps the most ironic potential outcome of the events sparked by a Tunisian street vendor on Dec. 17, 2010.”)

A sidebar to the piece above covers developments across the region over the past four years in a paragraph per country. (Read)

Foreign press coverage on Egypt yesterday was dominated by the news that theBritish Embassy in Cairo announced it was suspending its public services until further notice due to security concerns. The story on the British Embassy’s closure was reported on worldwide, including the American and European press.

Reuters re-ran unchanged (and without explanation) its piece titled “UAE-Egypt alliance expands to desert wheat venture,” earning pretty wide international pickup for a piece that notes “Egypt and two companies from its strong backer United Arab Emirates have embarked on an ambitious plan to grow wheat in the desert that could boost the Cairo government’s credibility if successful.” (Read)

Meanwhile, the allocation of land to the UAE’s Al-Ghurair for a new sugar factory in Minya is making headlines in the UAE. (Read)

The handing down of provisional death sentences to four Muslim Brotherhood members over clashes on 30 June 2013 received muted coverage yesterday. (Read)

King Abdullah II of Jordan recently sat down with Charlie Rose for an interview. In the following excerpt, King Abdullah comments on President Sisi and why the region needs Egypt. (Watch) (Jordan is also in the headlines this morning afterarresting the deputy leader of its local Ikhwani offshoot following remarks critical of the United Arab Emirates. The New York Times has a long take on the arrest and what it means for Jordanian politics.)

Wamda interviews the Minister of Communications and Information Technology who hopes that Egypt’s ICT sector will become “a cyber Suez Canal” (whatever that means) and expects the sector to grow by 12-13% this year. Read the whole interview here.

ENERGY, RENEWABLE ENERGY & SUBSIDY REFORM

The government has fuel subsidy reform plan ready, will leave it for the next parliament to review
Al Masry Al Youm | 06 Dec 2014
A source told AMAY that the government has finalized a complete fuel subsidy reform program but will wait for parliamentary review and approval before implementing it. The source said the plan involves a follow up on the initial stage of issuing motor-vehicle owners smart cards for fuel and will limit the amount of subsidized fuel the vehicles are allowed to 1,800 liters / year for under 1.6L engine cars and 10,000 liters / year for public buses and trucks. The measure aims to reduce next year’s state expenditures by EGP 50 bn. (Read in Arabic)

Saudi Shaheen Group invests EGP 500m in new and renewable energy in Egypt
Daily News Egypt | 07 Dec 2014
KSA’s Shaheen Group will invest EGP 500 mn in Egypt in the new and renewable energy sector, the first phase of a larger investment plan in the country, according to company chairman Abdullah Shaheen in a press conference in Cairo on Saturday. The investments will be directed toward agricultural and solar projects, including a solar station in the New Valley that will deliver c. 50MW to the national grid. (Read)

Egyptian Armed Forces to finance and implement emergency power-generation capacity
Al Mal | 07 Dec 2014
An unnamed source at Egypt’s Ministry of Electricity & Renewable Energy was quoted in Al Mal saying that the Egyptian Armed Forces will finance and implement the ministry’s third emergency backup plan for electricity supply in 2015. Once implemented, the emergency capacities would be able to generate around 3400 MW and would include a total of 68 generators, 50 of which would be mobile, at a total investment cost of EGP 16 bn. Tender offers have been awarded to General Electric, Siemens, Oracsom Construction Industries and El Sewedy Electric among others. (Read in Arabic)

Ministry of electricity reconsiders concession to import LED lamps
Al Borsa | 07 Dec 2014
The Ministry of Electricity said last Thursday it was backing away from an earlier decision to award a tender for the import of 10 mn LED lamps solely to Metra Computers. Instead, both Metra and NS Imports will share the contract. Sources at the ministry tell Al-Borsa the decision came because of complaints that Metra Computers was incapable of meeting the stringent deadline of the contract, which stipulates delivery within five months of signing. The paper quotes the source as saying Metra had capacity constraints. (Read in Arabic)

OIL & GAS

Petrojet awarded USD 142.5 mn contracts in Iraq
Al Borsa | 07 Dec 2014
Egypt’s Petrojet was awarded a USD 142.5 mn contract in Iraq including a USD 75 mn contract to refurbish Al Basra Gas’ lines for Shell and other companies. Petrojet will collaborate with Samsung to prepare a production site for ENI in a USD 67.2 mn contract, Al-Borsa reported (Read in Arabic)

EGAS denies finalizing agreement to import Cypriot gas
Al Mal | 07 Dec 2014
A source at EGAS told Al Mal that rumors of Egypt signing an agreement to import natural gas from Cyprus are untrue. The only finalized agreements only involve deals to import gas from Algeria and Russia that will go through Höegh LNG’s floating storage and regasification unit, which Egypt signed an agreement to use earlier this year. (Read in Arabic)

BASIC MATERIALS & COMMODITIES

Steel and cement producers object to government study for possible new licenses
Al Borsa, Daily News Egypt | 07 Dec 2014
Several steel and cement producers said the government’s consideration of new steel and cement production licenses is not feasible because of the lack of fuel supplies. Investment Minister Ashraf Salman had said last Tuesday that the government is mulling the possibility of issuing licenses for new cement and steel factories through the year 2020 in order to close a projected gap of 30 mn tons of cement and 4.5 mn tons of steel. The head of the mineral industries division at the Manufacturers Union, Gamal El-Garhy, said any talk of new licenses in the sector is irrelevant if no measures are taken to provide adequate fuel supplies for the proposed factories. A re-cut of the piece for sister publication Daily News Egypt quotes Arabian Cement Co. CEO Jose Maria Magrina as saying: “There are 22 cement factories on the Egyptian market that are not working at their full capacity. Maximum capacity is 77m tons of cement while annual consumption does not exceed 52m tones. The Egyptian armed forces previously announced the construction of two new cement production lines in Sinai and Beni Suef, which would add around 4-5m tones, bringing total capacity to 80m tones annually in the coming years.” (Read in Arabic or in the Daily News)

President El Sisi meets minister of Supply and Internal Trade on Damietta logistics hub
Office of the Presidency | 07 Dec 2014
According to a release from the Office of the Presidency, President Abdelfattah El-Sisi met with Minister of Supply and Internal Trade Khaled Hanafy on Sunday. The meeting included the members of a specialized committee dedicated to the proposed grain logistics hub in Damietta. The meeting noted that the government had completed its technical studies of the project.

Significant progress made to resolve seed company re-nationalization
Daily News Egypt | 07 Dec 2014
The Chairman of the Nubaria Seed Production Company (NUBASEED) said that significant progress has been made to resolve the dispute surrounding the company. A statement from the Saudi-Egyptian Businessmen Association said that the General Authority for Reconstruction Projects and Agriculture Development (GARPAD) has handed the company all its files. NUBASEED was purchased under privatization initiatives in 1999 but had its assets seized after 25 January 2011 after a court reversed the sale and renationalized the company. (Read)

Steel imports drop 80%
Al Borsa | 07 Dec 2014
Steel have dropped by 80% since the imposition of anti-dumping duties, driving up prices domestically, according to a local business owner quoted by Al Borsa. Domestically, as global input prices fell, producers have reduced steel retail prices by EGP 100 to EGP 5,200 / ton – still more expensive than Turkish imports that were selling at EGP 4,800 / ton. (Read in Arabic)

REAL ESTATE

Ministry of Housing preparing land for first stage of Arabtec’s housing project
Shorouk | 07 Dec 2014
The Ministry of Housing is now preparing 2,500 feddans for Arabtec’s initial stage of its housing project that involves building 120,000 residential units. The plots will be located in Badr, Obour, and New Minya, but a final price has not yet been reached, and expected to be finalized within ten days, as the Ministry seeks to ensure that the finished units could be offered at affordable prices. (Read in Arabic)

Social Housing between old policies and future opportunities
EIPR | 07 Dec 2014
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights released yesterday their new housing policy paper: “Housing Policy in Egypt between the Continuation of the Past’s Policies, and Drafting Just Policies for the Future.” The release for the study begins by criticizing current and former government approaches to ‘social housing’, a term which can be used to denote low or middle income housing. The release is critical of the approach of the 1 mn housing units mentality, starting with its critique of the Mubarak Housing Project. The study makes a number of recommendations, the most of salient of which is: “The foremost recommendation is thus to regulate the housing market by designating all social housing units as rental units, establishing an independent body to monitor the housing market and protect consumers, and getting the Ministry of Housing out of the business of buying and selling land and real estate.” (Read the release in English or download the policy brief in Arabic)

Private sector to finance infrastructure for reclamation of 1 mn feddans — planning minister
Al Mal | 07 Dec 2014
Planning Minister Ashram El Araby said the government plans to enlist the help of the private sector in financing infrastructure projects related to the reclamation of 1 mn feddans. The minister said the government will also tap international financial institutions. The head of the Agricultural Development Agency, Ashraf Abdel Aziz, has said that EGP 10 bn is needed to connect the 1 mn feddans with vital infrastructure and services. (Read in Arabic)

TOURISM

Travco to develop an EGP 600 mn hotel in Sahl Hasheesh
Al Borsa | 07 Dec 2014
Travco is investing EGP 600 mn in a hotel in Sahl Hasheesh, Al-Borsa says. The 480-room hotel is expected to begin operations by the end of 2015 and will be operated by Steigenberger. (Read in Arabic)

Egyptian Resorts Company sells out Jamaran development in Sahl Hasheesh, will recognize revenue of EGP 93.5 mn over 3 years
Company Release | 07 Dec 2014
Egyptian Resorts Company announced yesterday the sale of all of its units at its upscale, all-villa seaside Jamaran development in Sahl Hasheesh. Jamaran is the company’s first internally developed real estate project in Sahl Hasheesh, and the sale of all available units sets the company on course to recognize revenues of EGP 93.5 mn over the coming three years. ERC sold non-sea front land plots for USD 11.4 million at a weighted average price per square meter of USD 242.

Tourism sector asks banks to postpone debt repayment to end of 2015
Daily News Egypt | 06 Dec 2014
The Egyptian Federation of Chambers of Tourism requested the banking system postpone debt repayment until the end of 2015, according to a Ministry of Tourism official. According to the unnamed official, the sector will not recover before 2016. He said the amount owed to (mostly public-sector) banks by the tourism sector exceeds EGP 10 bn. The CBE launched an initiative at the beginning of 2014 to postpone the tourism sector’s debts until the end of the year to allow the sector to recover. (Read)

BANKING & FINANCE

Minister of Housing: Number of banks participating in the one million homes project to be increased
Youm7 | 06 Dec 2014
Egypt’s Minister of Housing, Utilities & Urban Development, Moustafa Madbouly, announced that the ministry will increase the number of banks that will participate in providing financing for the one million homes project. The move comes as part of the ministry’s effort to reduce the financing barriers faced by low-income home buyers, not the least of which include long processing periods. (Read in Arabic)

AAIB posts 9M profit of EGP 842 mn, up 7% y-o-y
Amwal Al Ghad | 04 Dec 2014
Arab African International Bank (AAIB) has reported a 7% y-o-y increase in 9M net earnings to EGP 842 mn. (Read)

Egypt’s Blom Bank Profits Surge to EGP 197.8 mn in September
Amwal Al Ghad | 06 Dec 2014
Blom Bank Egypt posted EGP 197 mn in net earnings for the nine months ending 30 September 2014, up sharply from EGP 109 mn in the same period last year. (Read)

ABA, National Bank of Egypt negotiate over EGP 20 mn in microfinance projects
Amwal Al Ghad | 06 Dec 2014
The Alexandria Businessmen Association (ABA) is seeking EGP 20 mn in financing from the National Bank of Egypt (NBE) for microfinance activities, according to ABA Executive Director Moataz Al Tabaa. (Read)

OTHER BUSINESS NEWS OF NOTE

Qalaa Holdings 67% drop in net loss with 3Q14 results
Earnings Release, Reuters | 07 Dec 2014
Qalaa Holdings released yesterday its consolidated financial results for the three months ending 30 September 2014, reporting revenues of EGP 1.7 bn, up 11% compared with EGP 1.5 bn in 2Q14. The company declared a Net Loss After Minority Interest of EGP 59.6 mn in 3Q14, a 67% improvement from the previous quarter. The release says the company will look to report EBITDA of c. 600-650 mn for FY14 and a “significant” increase in that figure next year. Qalaa is also working to reduce debt at the holding company level as it seeks a return to profitability in 2016. (View pdf or read on Reuters)

NTRA: TE Data’s new pricing scheme violates competition regulations
Al Mal | 07 Dec 2014
TE Data’s new pricing schemes are an unequivocal violation of local competition regulations, according to the head of the National Telecommunications Regulatory Agency. NTRA says TE Data ignored concerns about its service quality and sought to attract more subscribers by squeezing their margins. A representative of Telecom Egypt, TE Data’s parent company, responded by saying that the company believed that NTRA had no objections to its new pricing scheme as it had not voiced any concerns. The company attributed any inconsistency in service quality to an ongoing process by Telecom Egypt to refurbish its landline network. (Read in Arabic and TE Data’s response)

EGYPT POLITICS + ECONOMICS

Finance Ministry expects savings of USD 10 bn from economic reform programs
Al Mal | 07 Dec 2014
The economic reform initiatives implemented by the Ministry of Finance are expected to yield USD 10 bn in savings, according to Minister Dimian. Dimian does not expect a financing gap larger than USD 3 bn at year’s end. The Minister of Finance also noted that Egypt hopes to issue bonds guaranteed by the UAE and Saudi Arabia to finance debt repayment to international oil companies, Al-Mal reports. (Read in Arabic)

INTERNATIONAL

Sonatrach to go on with USD 90 bn investment plan
Bloomberg | 07 Dec 2014
Algerian state-owned oil company, Sonatrach, is unfazed by low oil prices and will invest USD 22 bn in natural gas field development. This comes as part of the company’s USD 90 bn investment plan that also involves a USD 400 mn project to develop shale gas that starts next year. Sonatrach’s interim CEO said that the company’s investment strategy was based on a scenario with USD 70 / bbl oil, so the overall plan isn’t affected by the most recent price drops. (Read)

ON YOUR WAY OUT

Schools have reopened in North Sinai towns Rafah and Sheikh Zuweid following ten days of closure. (Read)

The Economist published its very thorough list of the best books in 2014, check it out here.