It’s merry merry month of May, as stocks fly of the shelves and fridges get packed with Ramadan supplies. The holy month is only a few weeks away at this point, with expectations hovering at around 16 or 17 May.

As it’s the first week of the month, we’re expecting to hear a number of new indicators this week. Tomorrow is PMI Day and it should be an interesting one considering Ramadan is around the corner. We’re also awaiting the FX reserve figures this week.

More importantly, inflation numbers that should come out on 10 May. This month is all the more significant as the central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet on 17 May to determine interest rates/

In the meantime, Egypt’s M2 money supply growth rate rose to 21.85% y-o-y in March to EGP 3.34 tn (USD 189.56 bn), the CBE announced on Monday, Reuters reports.

You have until Thursday to finish filing your tax returns: The Tax Authority has extended the deadline for companies to file their tax returns until this Thursday, from the original Monday deadline, authority head Emad Samy said, Al Mal reports. Corporate tax revenues are expected to rise to EGP 55.5 bn for the current tax season, up from EGP 33 bn the year before, Samy had told us in an exclusive last week.

It’s Fed Day: The US Federal Reserve will announce its decision on interest rates today, Reuters reports. It is widely expected that the Fed will hold interest rates steady but will likely further encourage expectations that it will lift borrowing costs in June on the back of rising inflation and low unemployment.

April was not kind to emerging market currencies. “While the greenback is on track to notch its best month since Donald Trump’s election in 2016 thanks to higher US interest rates expectations and a general shift away from riskier assets, these same forces have left EM currencies nursing heavy losses,” Pan Kwan Yuk writes for the Financial Times. Russia, Brazil, and Mexico sustained the sharpest drops, and the move is likely to prompt central banks to tighten rather than ease their fiscal policies, Capital Economics analysts suggest. They say, however, that expectations for another hike in US interest rates is unlikely to cause “sharp outflows from EM assets.”

Nothing concrete from Aramco, but privatized education in Saudi got a major boost. Saudi Arabian authorities ordered 25 state-run schools be managed by private sector companies on Tuesday, Reuters reports.

Morocco will sever diplomatic ties with Iran over Tehran’s support for the Polisario Front, according to Reuters. Morocco will close its embassy in Tehran and will expel the Iranian ambassador in Rabat, Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita told reporters. He claims that Iran and its Hezbollah were supporting Polisario by training and arming its fighters, via the Iranian embassy in Algeria. “Hezbollah sent military officials to Polisario and provided the front with … weapons and trained them on urban warfare,” Bourita said.