EnterprisePM — CBE ups maximum draw from tourism support fund as it winds down + issues new rules on lending to real estate developers

We hope you’re all warm on this cold winter afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. If ever there was a day for hot chocolate…

The Central Bank of Egypt is THE BIG STORY AT HOME this afternoon after it issued a circular this morning saying tourism companies can draw up to EGP 40 mn from a central bank initiative to support struggling industry. The program, launched last year as part of the bank’s wider covid stimulus program, is now set to wrap up at the end of June. The bank also handed down today changes to how banks can extend credit to real estate developers. We have chapter and verse on both stories in this afternoon’s Speed Round, below.

HAPPENING NOW- Egypt will try to speed up the implementation of the Universal Healthcare Program to cover all governorates in 10 years, as opposed to the previously planned 15 years, President Abdel Fattah El Sisi said in a speech in Alexandria during the inauguration of Ismailiyah Integrated Healthcare Complex and other medical centers in the area. El SIsi also thanked healthcare workers and outlined steps his administration has taken to keep Egyptians safe and healthy during the pandemic.

BACKGROUND- The Sisi administration started its governorate-by-governorate rollout of the new national healthcare system in 2019. Under the scheme, the state will contract out the delivery of healthcare services to private sector hospitals that have signed up to provide services under the Act. You can catch Ittihadiya’s statement on El Sisi’s speech here or give a listen yourself (watch, runtime: 20:51).

ALSO- Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has landed in Cairo for a two-day visit that will include talks with Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, reports Geo News. Egypt is a gateway to Africa as Pakistan aims to enhance trade relations with the continent, Qureshi said. The minister is planning to visit Al Azhar University and talk investment with Egypt’s business community, reports The Daily Pakistan.

** CATCH UP QUICK- The top stories from this morning’s edition of EnterpriseAM:

• We passed a grim milestone overnight as more than 10k Egyptians have now died of covid-19. Meanwhile, the Health Ministry is now giving required second shots to medical professionals participating in the first phase of the vaccine rollout.
• The unemployment rate effectively held steady at the end of 2020, improving 100 bps.
• The IFC is giving USD 30 mn in financing to the Egyptian arm of Turkish glass maker Pasabahce.

THE BIG STORY ABROAD? No single story has captured the imagination of the global business press. The WSJ is giving plenty of ink to Goldman Sachs getting into the robo-advisory business with “Marcus Invest” and to Bill Gates’ book on climate change. Meabwhile, Bloomberg notes that the TRY is winning over investors as its appreciation against the greenback continues.

YOUR STATUTORILY REQUIRED AFTERNOON COVID UPDATE: Three Israelis who had previously recovered from a coronavirus infection have been reinfected by the South African variant, the Washington Post writes. The phenomenon underscores the need for widespread pickup of vaccinations and prevention measures such as double-masking to prevent mutant strains from taking hold.

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???? HAPPENING TOMORROW- A MENA x CEO panel on venture capital and entrepreneurism in our neck of the woods hosted by the Columbia Entrepreneurs Organization in the form of a MENA x CEO panel. The gathering headlined “Investor Perspectives from New York to North Africa” takes place tomorrow at 7:30pm CLT. Lots of friends are among the panelists, including Global Ventures Managing Director Amal Enan, HOF Capital Managing Partner Onsi Sawiris, AAF Management General Partner and CFO Omar Darwazah and AUC Entrepreneurship Professor Ayman Ismail. Tap or click here to register.

???? FOR YOUR COMMUTE-

???? We have aliens on the brain today thanks to The Economist, which writes in its “leader” piece this week that “the search for ET may soon yield an answer” as “a variety of telescopes and spacecraft are, or soon will be, looking for signs of life in places ranging from the moons and planets of the solar system to other stars in Earth’s corner of the Milky Way.” The results could change how we view what it means to be human — and our “place in the universe,” the magazine writes.

This time ‘round, there’s plenty of scientific progress — and maybe evidence that ET has already swung by our neighborhood. Go deep with The search for ET hots up, then read about The alien hunter of Harvard and before you move on to a review of said scientist’s new book, which is appropriately titled Extraterrestrial: The first sign of intelligent life beyond earth. The book argues that we were visited by an alien probe in late 2017. The New Yorker goes even deeper into the distinguished astronomer Avi Loeb’s argument in Have we already been visited by aliens?

What’s with all this outer space stuff lately? It’s probably a function of our looking forward to season two of For All Mankind, as we noted the other day. It’s back for season two on Friday. For superfans: Apple is launching an every-other-week podcast to back the show, hosted by the very talented Krys Marshall, who plays an astronaut on the series. Catch the season two trailer here (watch, runtime: 2:42).

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Are your electronic gadgets about to get even more expensive? China is asking top execs to help estimate how badly it can hurt the US with a ban on exports of rare earth metals. Beijing is targeting US defense contractors, but rare earths are key components of consumer electronics such as mobile phones and laptops every bit as much as they’re used in weapons. Each one of America’s F-35 fighter jets uses about 417 kg of rare earth metals in its electrical power systems and magnets, for example, the Financial Times reports. Wired magazine called it about 18 months ago when it asked Are rare earths the next pawn in the US-China trade war?

Not just for tech nerds: While you’re on Wired’s website, go read The untold history of America’s zero-day market by Nicole Perlroth, on the “lucrative business of dealing in code vulnerabilities [that is] central to espionage and war planning.” Perlroth is an awesome New York Times reporter and the story is an adaptation of her book This Is how they tell me the world ends: The cyberweapons arms race.

???? ON THE TUBE TONIGHT-

Season three of Good Girls is out today. If you haven’t watched the series yet, think Breaking Bad, but with a female-led cast and less white powder. Three housewives decide to become criminals to support their families — and quickly get in over their heads. It’s a light watch to close out your night.

The UEFA Champions League kicks off today with two matches at 10pm CLT. Mo Salah’s Liverpool faces off against RB Leipzig while Barcelona plays Paris Saint-Germain.

A match to look out for: South Africa’s Kaizer Chiefs are set to face Morocco’s Wydad Athletic Club in Egypt for their CAF Champions League group stage debut. The match was previously scheduled to take place in Morocco last Saturday, but Casablanca refused to issue the Chiefs travel visas, citing the new covid-19 variant reported in South Africa, and instead found a “neutral venue”, reports Kickoff. The match is expected to be played before 20 February.

???? EAT THIS TONIGHT-

If you haven’t already tried O’s Pasta, their delicious creations will make this rainy day infinitely better. Located in Zamalek (Google Maps), it’s some of the best pasta we’ve ever had in Cairo, with fresh ingredients and innovative combinations. We’ve recently had the Sun-kissed Cream off their new menu and are still daydreaming about it.

???? OUT AND ABOUT-

A game-based art exhibit, anyone? The opening of exhibition Shish Bish — where you can visually enjoy and play with the pieces — is on today at Garden City’s Medrar (Google Maps). The exhibit runs until 3 March.

Ziad Khaled and El Waili will be playing a set at Cairo Jazz Club at 9pm CLT for Alt Tuesday.

Instrumental band Insjam will be playing at the Room New Cairo tonight at 9pm CLT. Insjam’s music is a fusion between Eastern and Western sounds and genres.

???? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

A book to help you look forward: Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World by CNN’s Fareed Zakaria is a timely read that explores the political, technological and economic implications of a post-pandemic world that may take years to unfold — from the quality of government to the rise of digital life. You can also check out The New York Times’s review of the book.

???? WEATHER UPDATE- We’re looking forward to a cold, windy evening in Cairo with the mercury hitting 7°C overnight. Expect more wind and a daytime high of 12°C in the capital city tomorrow, according to our favourite weather app. And there could be up to three more days of rain in store for Alexandria along with plenty more cold weather.

Tourism wage support initiative to end on 30 June — or when the pot is empty. A program by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) to give tourism companies access to subsidized lines of credit to cover wages, maintenance expenses, and operating costs is due to run its course at the end of June, two weeks later than previously planned. The cut-off date could come sooner if the EGP 3 bn allocated by the CBE runs out, according to a circular to local banks. Companies are also now no longer tied to six months’ worth of salary payments and can take out up to EGP 30 mn each to cover wages following changes outlined in the circular. They would be allowed up to EGP 40 mn if they have subsidiaries or other “related parties.”

Background: The central bank’s bailout program was part of its far-reaching stimulus program in the early days of the covid-19 pandemic as a scheme that existed pre-covid and saw EGP 50 bn available in affordable financing for tourism infrastructure work was expanded back in March 2020. This allowed access to non-investment loans to pay wages, supplier commitments, and maintenance.

GOOD NEWS FOR THE REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY: The CBE is now allowing banks to finance homes that would be built under revenue-sharing models, it said in a separate circular. Banks were previously only told to greenlight loans for developers that own the land or had been allocated it directly by the state. Now, changes to financing regulations for real estate developers will allow loans to residential projects where a developer partners with a state-owned or private company that would own the land, provided all parties are sufficiently creditworthy.

Banks were also instructed to get the developers to open escrow accounts to collect payments from homebuyers and a separate account for project-related expenses. This came after the CBE said it would ensure real estate developers stick to advertised construction and delivery timelines and use bank financing for nothing other than the project.

Another change allows banks to finance land installment payments. This will be possible only if a developer is facing liquidity shortages, the project is on land owned by a state body, and the developer’s cash-flow and financial position ensures repayments.

Who benefits? Real estate developers engaged in revenue-sharing projects with the government as bank financing will ease some of the pressure on liquidity amid challenging sector conditions and allow them to meet scheduled deliveries. Among the EGX-listed beneficiaries, HC Securities said in a research note, are private sector players including Palm Hills (for projects including Badya and Palm Hills New Cairo), TMG (Capital Gardens City), Sodic (for its revenue-sharing project with Heliopolis Housing Sodic East), and Orascom Development Egypt (for O West).

MORE CONTEXT on this morning’s unemployment figures: EFG Hermes’ Mohamed Abu Basha took a deeper dive in a client note today, writing that “while the headline number is somewhat underwhelming, it carried an important development: the number of employed people has risen to exceed pre-COVID-19 levels. … The number of employed jumped by a sharp 1.7 mn people, taking the overall number of employed people to 27.8mn. In the previous quarters, the drop in employment was driven by a reduced labour force.” Abu Basha thinks it is still a bit surprising that “employment recovered that strongly while the important tourism sector continues to suffer from depressed activity as a result of the pandemic.”

What’s driving job creation? Trade and agriculture, which together created more than 1 mn jobs, he says, followed by construction (317k jobs) and healthcare (124k).

Cairo-based microelectronics company Si-Ware Systems has raised a funding round worth nearly USD 9 mn from Sawari Ventures and Egypt Ventures, bringing total funding raised to USD 19 mn, Bassam Saadany, one of Si-Ware’s three co-founders, told Zawya. The company’s founders say they bootstrapped another USD 20 mn into the business in the form of proceeds from their sideline in microchip design, which has thrown off liquidity that they funneled into their core product activity. The company is one of very few in this part of the world that focuses on the development of novel core semiconductor and hardware technologies.

Si-Ware’s edge is in materials identification: “In 2016, Si-Ware released its first chip, which was as big as a large match box and cost nearly USD 2k.” Its NeoSpectra micro device, released three years later, is so small it can only be seen with an electronic microscope. ““Now, the lab can go to the field where the sample lies, instead of having the sample sent to the lab,” Saadany said.

The company is planning a split into two entities, NeoSpectra, which will push forward its microchip technology, and Pearl, which will specialize in the development and manufacturing of high-speed timing chips. “We are aspiring to be the first unicorn in high tech out of this region,” CEO Hesham Haddara said.

CATCH UP QUICK-

LEGISLATION WATCH- Eurobonds are now tax exempt: The House of Representatives voted to approve a bill to exempt capital gains made from trading government treasuries that were sold on international debt markets from fees and taxes, according to the local press.

OUR ANALYST OF THE WEEK- Mona Bedeir, Senior Economist at Prime Holding (Linkedin)

My name is Mona Bedeir and I’ve been at Prime Holding for the past four years. I’m a senior economist in the company’s research department and work on Prime’s daily research note as well as a monthly product that covers Egypt’s PMI, inflation, and reserves data. I focus on Egypt and my specialization is in macro, but we’re aiming to venture further into the region in the coming period, starting with GCC countries.

Joining Prime was my shift away from academia — I was previously a teaching assistant at MSA University while studying for my master’s in economics from Cairo University. Having a theoretical understanding of economics gives you a better oversight of the real world mechanisms while also helping you see other execution strategies. I’m also on the way to finishing my PhD from Cairo University.

The best part of my job is the challenge that every day I get to focus on a new topic. Economics is vast and always changing. I also enjoy using what I do at work to help people who ask me for advice.

The most frustrating part of my job is when I realize I don’t have recent data to analyze the whole picture. If I could add any indicators to the market, I would start with retail sales and labor market data. While the financial sector is very important of course, I believe the real economy is a door to understand what’s really happening on the ground.

When recommending an investment I always try to get a sense of the type of asset the investor is looking for and the purpose behind it. If they want a quick return, my recommendation will be much different than for an investor who's looking long-term. I ask questions such as what extent they can tolerate risk and how they weigh between risk and return.

I use a cost-benefit analysis to decide on anything in my professional and personal life. That’s what’s in my head if I’m deciding how to call an investment — or whether I should go out with my friends later tonight. However, it was a bit more tricky during the covid-19 pandemic when there was such a fundamental uncertainty that most cost-benefit analysis couldn’t be accurate.

At that point, I began recommending safe haven assets such as gold as a long-term investment. When the uncertainty lifts a bit, I do believe that we’ll return to being able to more accurately calculate risk. In general, I’m pro long-term investments.

I believe that commodity trading is an undiscovered gem for investment and that if you’re familiar with the local and global markets you’ll be able to gain high returns from them. Commodities are a reflection of the real economy. That said, I also think we should focus on human and social capital.

2021 is the year of unclear skies in Egypt and beyond. I don’t think this will be the year of Egypt due to covid-19 and its implications. Without the pandemic, 2020 could have been the year of Egypt, but the timeline has been pushed back a few years. I would go as far as to say that Egypt won’t have “it’s year” until at least 2023.

If I wasn’t focused on Egypt, I would have liked to focus on Africa as a whole. I believe the continent’s markets have a lot of overlooked potential that needs a spotlight.

If I wasn’t an analyst altogether, I would have liked to work at an NGO for social development. More specifically women empowerment and gender protection. I like my work to help people.

When I’m not on the clock, I like to bike. I’ve also started going on rides with friends on weekends and my last ride was at the Wadi Degla Protectorate in Maadi.

The last great thing I watched was a documentary called Return to El Salvador which covers the period after the civil war. I’m a big fan of documentaries in general and especially ones that cover these transitional periods.

I’ve read quite a few good books in the past few months. I’m currently reading the Description de l'Egypte series that included memoirs of people who lived in Egypt during the French occupation. I’m a big fan of historical books that include firsthand accounts of major events. One of my favorite writers is Elif Shafak and I recently read her book The Bastard Of Istanbul that describes her relationship with her home country. Finally, the book I always pick up whenever I’m struggling or whenever the world feels heavy on my shoulders is The Open Door by Latifa Zayyat. The book speaks to me personally and I often wish I had existed at that time and participated in its events.

My trick to staying organized is always to promise myself a treat once I finish a task. It ensures I stay committed even if it's as little as promising myself a bar of chocolate. Of course, this comes after I prioritize my day and have everything in a checklist. I’m also a big fan of deadlines and even make sure to ask for one at work.

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The EGX30 rose less than 0.1% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 1.4 bn (2.7% below the 90-day average). Local investors were net sellers. The index is up 6.35% YTD.

In the green: Ibn Sina (+3.5%), MM Group (+3.0%) and Ezz Steel (+2.9%).

In the red: Fawry (-3.8%), Credit Agricole Egypt (-2.3%) and Eastern Company (-0.9%).

MARKET NEWS-

The board of Egypt Starch and Glucose approved to have the company delist from the EGX, the company said in a bourse filing today (pdf). The board also signed off on the fair value report, which prices shares at EGP 9.63 per share.

The Guardian is out with a (gorgeous) photo series of Egypt’s White Desert, with a particular focus on the famous wind-carved rock formations called inselbergs. The photos were taken by Egyptian photographer Khaled Elfiqi.

The short answer: Yes.

We’ve been dragging an iPad (most recently the 12.9” Pro version) around to interviews and business meetings for a dog’s age, and there’s inevitably an analyst in the room who eventually asks, “Okay, but can it run Excel?” So let’s start there:

Can you run Excel on it? Yes.

Are you going to be building financial models on an iPad? Nope. Microsoft has hobbled macros (among other functionality) in both the native iPadOS app and the Office 365 version that runs (very smoothly) in Safari.

So what can you do on an iPad? For starters, you can make Enterprise — we’re writing this story on the iPad Pro, in Google Docs running in Safari — or to manage your website. It’s our “real” computer about 40% of the time (a 16” MacBook Pro does the rest) and our “evenings and weekends’ computer 100% of the time. It’s also the only device we’ll take with us when we next travel (whenever the hell that will next be) now that you can directly ingest images from SD and CFExpress cards into Lightroom. It’s a video and photo-editing suite, a text editor, the platform on which we most often run Excel and the only way we read books these days.

You’ll need some essential equipment to use the iPad Pro for work. For us, that’s Apple’s new(ish) Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro, which fits the 2019 and 2020 models very nicely (there are versions available for both the 11” and 12.9” models). It gives you a very nice-feeling (and sounding) keyboard and a trackpad. We also use this stand on occasion and have been known to hammer away at a mechanical keyboard (and we’re debating building one from scratch, but that’s another sickness for another day) and wireless Magic Mouse alongside the Apple Pencil.

But Enterprise, I tried to get Docs running in Safari and I keep getting kicked to Google’s really crappy iOS app. First, make sure you’re running iPadOS 14 — its version of Safari tells Google that it’s a Mac. Next, don’t go to docs.google.com — you want to go open drive.google.com, then navigate to the Doc you want to open. Tap it and it will open in a new tab, ready for you to edit. Tap the prompt at the bottom of the page to tell it you don’t want it to open the Docs app and you’re good to go.

Okay, but why would I want to do real work on an iPad Pro? You may not — not if you love Windows (we’ve heard it’s possible) or can’t get used to anything other than MacOS’ paradigm for how you get things done. But between fantastic apps, a desktop-class browser, the ability to sketch and take hand-written notes, we use it to take notes during interviews and calls, mark up design concepts, write and edit, share files, and more during the workday. Excel is more than up to the task of letting us open and read income statements and the like, and both Gmail and Outlook run nicely in the browser as well as on dedicated email apps.

But the iPad Pro’s superpower? Context shifting. Need to mark up a website concept, PDF or PowerPoint deck? Snatch the tablet off its keyboard base, grab the Pencil and go to town. Reading Enterprise? Put your feet up and get to it. Time to reply to an email? Back onto the keyboard to hammer away with maximum efficiency. Want to watch a show in bed — or on the plane? Put the keyboard away and you have a gorgeous, immersive screen. It lets you move with ease from the car to the office, from the meeting room to your desk, from your home office to your kitchen breakfast bar.

And don’t even think of getting the WiFi-only model. You want to be able to jack into the interwebs whenever you want, whether that’s to catch a flick, do email, log into WhatsApp Web or start working on PowerPoint that resides in your OneDrive or a Slides deck in your Drive. That means you want always-on LTE.

You’re not the only geek doing this, are you? Nope — and you won’t be, either. Six Colors’ Jason Snell has been writing on iPad since 2012 (even though it sucked back then) and is firmly a member of “Team Both” (geekspeak for “I use an iPad and a Mac and love them both”). Daring Fireball’s John Gruber — a Mac-head if ever there was one — has been warming to his.

Required reading: Twitter design nerd and photographer Paul Stamatiou talks how the iPad Pro “took me by surprise and replaced my laptop.” TechCrunch editor Matthew Panzarino has put 100k miles on his iPad Pro (pre-covid…), which he says has “been my only machine away from home.”

The grandaddy of them all is an Italian guy named Federico Viticci, who switched to the iPad from his Mac while undergoing chemotherapy and was reborn a tablet evangelist. He’s known for his epic-length reviews of iOS and iPadOS and chronicled his journey in Beyond the tablet: seven years of iPad as my main computer.

February: France’s finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, is set to visit Egypt.

6-27 February (Saturday-Saturday): Mid-year school break (public schools — enjoy the break from bumper-to-bumper traffic).

7-28 February (Sunday-Sunday): The Finance Ministry will receive applications from companies wishing to take part in the second phase of its program for the immediate payout of export subsidy arrears to exporters, minus a 15% fee.

17 February (Wednesday): MENA x CEO MENA Entrepreneurship & VC Panel: Investor Perspectives from New York to North Africa will be hosted by the Columbia Entrepreneurs Organization.

20 February (Saturday): Final results of applications for private university places will be announced on the Higher Education Ministry’s electronic university admissions site

22-24 February (Monday-Wednesday): Second Arab Land Conference on land management, efficient land use, among other topics.

22 February- 5 March (Monday-Friday) Egypt will host the World Shooting Championship in 6 October’s Shooting Club, with 31 countries set to participate

26 February (Thursday): The Afro Future Summit will take place virtually.

28 February (Sunday) Deadline for businesses, sole traders, and those generating income from sources other than their day job to file wage tax returns through the electronic filing system.

March: Potential visit to Cairo by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

1 March: Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum comes into effect.

1-5 March (Monday-Friday): Aswan Forum for Peace and Development will take place virtually.

4-6 March (Thursday-Saturday): Cairo Fashion & Tex trade show, Cairo International Convention Centre, Cairo, Egypt

8 March (Monday): The IDC Future of Work Egypt conference will be held virtually featuring experts from Egypt and Jordan.

9-11 March (Tuesday-Thursday): EduGate 2021 – Enter The Future conference, Kempinski Royal Maxim Hotel, Cairo, Egypt.

18 March (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

23 March (Tuesday): The second edition of the Egypt Retail Summit takes place at the Nile Ritz Carlton hotel.

25-27 March (Thursday-Saturday): The Real Gate real estate exhibition, Egyptian International Exhibition Center, Cairo.

31 March (Wednesday): Deadline to visit the moroor and get an RFID sticker affixed to your car’s windshield — or run afoul of the Traffic Police.

1-3 April (Thursday-Saturday): HVAC-R Egypt Expo.

8-10 April (Thursday-Saturday): The TriFactory’s Endurance Festival at Somabay.

13 April (Monday): First day of Ramadan (TBC).

25 April (Sunday): Sinai Liberation Day.

29 April (Thursday): National holiday in observance of Sinai Liberation Day (TBC),

29 April (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

1 May (Saturday): Labor Day (national holiday).

2 May (Sunday): Easter Sunday.

3 May (Monday): Sham El Nessim.

13-15 May (Thursday-Saturday): Eid El Fitr (TBC).

25-28 May (Tuesday-Friday): The World Economic Forum annual meeting, Singapore.

1 June (Tuesday): The IMF will conduct a second review of targets set under the USD 5.2 bn standby loan approved in June 2020 (proposed date).

7 June-9 June (Monday-Wednesday): Egypt Petroleum Show, Egypt International Exhibition Center, New Cairo, Egypt.

17 June (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

24 June (Thursday): End of the 2020-2021 academic year (public schools).

26-29 June (Saturday-Tuesday): The Big 5 Construct Egypt, Cairo International Convention Center, Cairo, Egypt.

30 June (Wednesday): 30 June Revolution Day.

1 July: (Thursday): National holiday in observance of 30 June Revolution.

30 June- 15 July: National Book Fair.

1 July (Thursday): Large taxpayers that have not yet signed on on to the e-invoicing platform will suffer a host of penalties, including removal from large taxpayer classification, losing access to government services and business, and losing subsidies.

19 July (Monday): Arafat Day (national holiday).

20-23 July (Tuesday-Friday): Eid Al Adha (national holiday)

23 July (Friday): Revolution Day (national holiday).

5 August (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

9 August (Monday): Islamic New Year.

12 August (Thursday): National holiday in observance of the Islamic New Year.

16 September (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

30 September-2 October (Thursday-Saturday): Egypt Projects 2021 expo, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo, Egypt.

1 October (Friday): Expo 2020 Dubai opens.

6 October (Wednesday): Armed Forces Day.

7 October (Thursday): National holiday in observance of Armed Forces Day.

18 October (Monday): Prophet’s Birthday.

21 October (Thursday): National holiday in observance of the Prophet’s Birthday.

28 October (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

1-12 November (Monday-Friday): 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), Glasgow, United Kingdom.

13-17 December: United Nations Convention against Corruption, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

16 December (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

27 June – 3 July 2022 (Monday-Sunday): World University Squash Championships, New Giza.

Note to readers: Some national holidays may appear twice above. Since 2020, Egypt has observed most mid-week holidays on Thursdays regardless of the day on which they fall and may also move those days to Sundays. We distinguish below between the actual holiday and its observance.