Wednesday, 31 March 2021

EnterprisePM — RIP Kamal El Ganzouri.

TL;DR

WHAT WE’RE TRACKING TONIGHT

…and that’s the first quarter in the books, everyone. It’s 2Q2020 (and April Fool’s Day) tomorrow. The Colonel was right: Time accelerates as you age.

THE BIG STORY at home this afternoon

Former prime minister and veteran politician Kamal El Ganzouri died earlier today aged 88 after struggling with an undisclosed illness, Al Ahram reports. Ganzouri twice served as Egypt’s prime minister, first under former president Hosni Mubarak from 1996 to 1999, and later briefly appointed to the position by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces from November 2011 through June 2012, after Mubarak’s ouster. During his first spell in office, Ganzouri played a key role in setting the government’s privatization agenda, which saw the state sell off several large public sector companies in the late 1990s. Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly called for a moment of silence at today’s cabinet meeting in honor of Ganzouri’s death. Bloomberg is also out with an obituary.

CATCH UP QUICK on the top stories from this morning’s issue of EnterpriseAM:

  • There’s lots of news out of the Sovereign Fund of Egypt, including an EGP 250 mn commitment to the final close of EFG Hermes’ education fund, an MoU with GEMS Egypt to build schools on SFE-owned land, and the possibility that the SFE could roll its real estate assets into a new, IPO-able vehicle.
  • The EGX could see as many as six listings this year. It’s already looking fantastic: innovative higher ed player Taaleem and cosmeceutical giant Macro Pharma are now in the market, and consumer healthcare leader IDH about to pull off the nation’s first-ever technical listing.
  • A big batch of AstraZeneca’s covid-19 vaccine will land in Egypt today, one day after the Madbouly government announced rules and regs governing the month of Ramadan (which is, incidentally, 13 days away).

THE BIG STORY ABROAD-

The US could be getting over USD 2 tn in infrastructure funding, under a new plan to be officially announced by President Joe Biden in the coming hours, the White House announced in a statement. Dubbed “The American Jobs Plan,” the proposal is being billed as the biggest US investment into a national project since the space race. A second round of initiatives, focused on healthcare, child care, and education is due to be announced in mid-April, bringing the plan’s total budget to just over USD 3 tn.

Where’s the money going? The eight-year plan will include USD 620 bn for transport, USD 580 bn for manufacturing, USD 400 bn for elderly and disabled care, USD 180 bn for non-defense research, and USD 650 bn for improving home quality of life. The government will dedicate about 1% of GDP per year over those eight years to implement improvements in these areas.

Where’s the money coming from? The government plans to hike corporate income tax to 28% from 21%, and to set a minimum 21% tax on global corporate earnings, which should allow the plan, to be fully paid for within the next 15 years. The reforms are expected to add 0.5% in corporate revenue to USD GDP annually. The package did not include any proposed tax raises on individuals, though observers expect the administration to try and raise the top tax rate for individuals with the second round of initiatives next month.

Weaning the US economy off of fossil fuels is a major priority: The proposal has earmarked USD 174 bn for investment in the electric vehicle industry, and USD 165 bn for public transit meant to shift more Americans away from fuel-guzzling cars. The plan will also eliminate fossil fuel subsidies and tax loopholes, and require fossil fuel companies to contribute funds to an environmental recovery fund.

And outperforming China is also on the agenda, with the White House statement identifying “ambitions of an autocratic China” as the great challenges facing the US today, in addition to the need to create mns of jobs.

Covid-19 has turbo-charged Beijing’s quest to overtake the US economy, with China’s economy now expected to overtake the US as the world’s largest in 2028, two years earlier than pre-covid forecasts, Bloomberg reports. Last year saw more Chinese than US companies make it to a list of the world’s largest, while China attracted more foreign investment than the US for the first time. But China’s V-shaped recovery could be stalled by high debt levels, while demographic changes mean it could fall behind the US again in a decade’s time as an ageing population chips away at growth rates.

The plan is likely to struggle with congressional approval, with Republican Senator Mitch McConnell calling the new investment plans a “Trojan horse for massive tax hikes and other job-killing, leftwing policies.”

US 10-year treasury yields rose three basis points to 1.73% on news of the spending plan. The bonds had risen to a 14-month high of 1.77% early Tuesday before dropping back down by the end of the day.

The ambitious plan follows the Biden administration’s passing of a USD 1.9 tn fiscal stimulus package earlier this month, meant to buoy the US economy and provide relief to families struggling with the economic aftershocks of covid-19.

The announcement is all over the front pages of the foreign press: Bloomberg | The Financial Times | Reuters | The Wall Street Journal.


More relevant for us here in Egypt-

The IMF is set to announce more optimistic prospects for global growth when it publishes its latest World Economic Outlook due next week, with improved forecasts buoyed by the US’ USD 1.9 tn stimulus package and its successful vaccine rollout plan, Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in a speech yesterday, CNBC reports. But Georgieva warned that the increased growth would be uneven, and driven mainly by the US and China. “They are part of a small group of countries that will be well ahead of their pre-crisis GDP levels by the end of 2021. But they are the exception, not the rule,” she said. The IMF had already raised its global forecasts from 5.2% to 5.5% in January.

You can find the report here on the IMF’s World Economic Outlook landing page when it is out on Tuesday, 6 April.

Growth for the world, debt crisis for EMs? Georgieva warned of a potential emerging market debt crisis, as rising US interest rates draw capital away from EMs, a situation that “would pose major challenges, especially to middle-income countries with large external financing needs and elevated debt levels,” she said. Georgieva is ringing the same bell as UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who just a few days ago said the short term borrowing by a large number of EM economies had put them at serious risk of default. The IMF is widely expected to approve a new USD 650 bn batch of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to support EM recovery during its Spring meeting beginning 5 April, which would be the largest issuance in history.

The Spring Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank Group are set to take place from 5-11 April. This year’s virtual meetings will bring together central bankers, ministers of finance and development, private sector executives, representatives from civil society organizations and academics. The topics up for discussion include the world economic outlook, poverty eradication, economic development, aid effectiveness, and the global financial system. Some events will be open to the public and can be streamed live from the World Bank’s platform.


HAPPENING NOW- Deliveroo’s London IPO is falling on its face: Deliveroo shares are tanking on its LSE debut. The company shed over GBP 2 bn in market value in its first moments as a public company after seeing its shares fall 30% to GBP 2.71 from a GBP 3.90 opening price during the first 20 minutes of play, the Financial Times reports. The share price recovered slightly to GBP 2.90 later in the trading day. The performance puts the company on track for the worst debut day for any major London listing in at least one decade, data from Dealogic shows.

A blow to London’s bid to attract high growth tech companies: The British government has made a big thing of trying to lure more tech companies to list on the LSE and rejuvenate the stock market. The UK regulator is considering easing listing rules to lure more special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) to London as part of a larger bid to boost IPO activity, especially new listings by SPACs and high-growth tech companies. Deliveroo’s performance could be a fresh blow to these efforts as it fueled growing doubts among large UK institutional investors about the wisdom of attempting to attract Silicon Valley-style listings, says the salmon-colored paper.


The green bond boom is leaving out emerging markets most in need of climate-friendly funding, according to a report by Imperial College Business School. While Egypt and Indonesia have led EMs in issuing sovereign green bonds, “the current green bond setup is designed by and for developed markets, and you can’t just apply it to EM,” said lead researcher Jonathan Amacker. The report suggests that “transition bonds” and “sustainability-linked bonds” may be more appropriate for EMs, as they tie borrowing rates to an environmental target. But if more is not done to give incentives to local investors and support the development of green finance infrastructure, the report suggests “local green issuance will continue to lag.”

YOUR STATUTORILY REQUIRED AFTERNOON COVID STORY- Have you already had covid? You may be protected against the variants that are now freaking out health officials worldwide. A recent US study suggests that T cells in folks who have natural immunity after an infection have a measure of protection against the troublesome UK, Brazil, and South Africa variants.

The Atlantic is diving into the AstraZeneca vaccine saga amid new reports of countries banning the use of the vaccine over possibly causing blood clots. The jab has been at the center of the World Health Organization’s plan to roll out some 2 bn doses to 92 nations by the end of the year, thus making the possible dangers a “nightmare scenario” for the world that could shake trust in vaccinations, and increase the toll of the pandemic globally. Successive investigations, including one in the European Union, have so far found that the jab does not create more clots than would normally appear in an unvaccinated population of the same size.

FOR TOMORROW- The HVAC-R Egypt Expo will run Thursday through Saturday at the Egypt International Exhibition Center in New Cairo. The fifth annual expo for heating, ventilation, air conditioning, refrigeration, and energy and brings together more than 170 national and international operators with different suppliers.

???? CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization will open this Saturday in El Fustat. Local and international visitors alike will pay less for admission for the first two weeks to explore the museum’s central hall, according to a cabinet statement. Meanwhile, the Royal Mummies Hall will be ready for visitors starting 18 April.

The Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum will reopen after 10 years of closure this Sunday, 4 April, according to a statement (pdf) by the Culture Ministry. The museum is located in Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil’s palace built in the early 20th century and houses the family’s expansive collection of masterpieces by great artists such as Paul Gauguin, Auguste Renoir, Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, John Jongkind and Charles Francois Daubigny.

The Spring Flowers Exhibit (Ma3rad El Zohoor) is currently taking place at Orman Botanical Garden in Giza. More than 200 exhibitors have set up shop to sell flowers, plants, agricultural products, and gardening equipment. The exhibit runs through 13 April.

???? FOR YOUR COMMUTE-

VW’s name change to Voltswagen was apparently some sort of PR stunt: German automaker Volkswagen’s US unit won’t actually be changing its name to Voltswagen, after the company had last week amended its US website and press releases to reflect the new corporate moniker, the Guardian reports. The announcement was a pre-April Fool’s joke aimed at driving attention to its new EV fleet, a company spokesman explained. This from a company that was found in 2015 to have lied through its teeth about US emissions regulations after having been found to have installed software designed to deceive testing machines, costing the company some USD 35 bn in lawsuits and fines. Really smart PR, boys and girls.

Nike is suing Brooklyn art collective MSCHF over their modification of Nike Air Max 97s into “Satan Shoes,” reports the BBC. The shoes were created in collaboration with Lil Nas X — a rapper who reached fame after his single Old Town Road — and feature an inverted cross, a pentagram, the words “Luke 10:18,” and most notably a drop of real human blood in the soles. Nike claims trademark infringement and has asked that MSCHF stops selling the sneakers.

Experts are ringing the alarm that the Tokyo Summer Olympics could potentially be a “global super spreader event” despite precautions being taken to ensure that the games (which kick off on 23 June) are safe for the 60k athletes, coaches, staff, and media personnel set to attend, Bloomberg reports. The game plan in place is to make the Olympics the world’s biggest covid bubble, with participants to be somewhat isolated from the Japanese public. However, Tokyo has ruled out using two core tenets of containment: quarantines and vaccinations, a decision experts worry could see infections spread to those in Japan and internationally as people head home.

Two interesting counterpoints on the NFT craze:

???? ON THE TUBE TONIGHT-

Golden Globe-nominated The Father has made its way to Egyptian cinemas nationwide. The film sees Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman playing a dementia-afflicted man and his daughter, both of them struggling to accept what the father’s deteriorating health means to their life and identity. You can check out these reviews by the Guardian and Hollywood Reporter.

Netflix has released Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom portraying the South African leader’s fight against political oppression and racism. Played by Idris Elba, Mandela takes us from his childhood in a rural village all the way to his inauguration as the country’s first democratically elected president. Both NPR and The Guardian thought the biopic was good, but needed more. You can also watch the film on Amazon Prime.

A whopping 15 matches are on today as part of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 qualifiers. Matches to look out for at 8:45pm include England versus Poland, Spain versus Kosovo, Germany versus North Macedonia, and Lithuania versus Italy.

???? OUT AND ABOUT-

Tintera Photographic Art Consultancy will be hosting Swedish artist Xenia Nikolskaya as she presents her newly published book, The House My Grandfather Built, with an artist talk and book signing on Saturday, 3 April at 4:30-6:30pm. The book won the Swedish Photobook Award for 2021. You can reserve a seat for the event by emailing zein@tintera.art.

The Cairo Flea Market will be holding a Ramadan Street Market this Friday at Sheikh Zayed’s Walk of Cairo.

Photo nerds in Alex, take note: Leon Dubois is giving a film photography workshop at Shelter Art Space in Alexandria. The six-session workshop will be held between 7-12 April.

????UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

Kate Quinn is out with her latest piece of historical fiction, The Rose Code. A mystery set during the Second World War, three very different women come together to attempt to break German military codes at Bletchley Park. War, loss, and the pressure of secrecy ultimately push them apart, but years later they are reunited by a mysterious encrypted letter that reveals an enemy that is coming back for them. Check out this review by Book Reporter for more on what to expect.


???? TOMORROW’S WEATHER- Expect more of the same the coming two days, with daytime highs of 22°C and lows of 11°C.

SPEED ROUND: LEGISLATION WATCH

MPs slash proposed irrigation fees by 90% amid controversy

MPs have rolled back on a proposed irrigation fee designed to curb the use of some of the nation’s canals for agriculture and limit water wastage. A provision in the draft Water Resources Act would have imposed on farmers a EGP 10k fee to pump water from the Nile, but according to Akhbar El Youm, MPs yesterday slashed the charge by almost 90%. According to one MP, the move was a response to a campaign published by foreign media outlets that had claimed the government wanted to sell water to farmers, while Ahram Online reported a swell in social media criticism in reaction to the fees.

In detail: The draft legislation would have forced farmers to pay EGP 10k for a renewable five-year license to set up pumping stations on the Nile and irrigation canals. But in a session on Monday, the House Agriculture Committee decided to reduce the fee to EGP 5k, before MPs in the general assembly cut it further to EGP 1.25k. Smallholders who own 10 feddans of land or less or farmers who use non-mechanical small pumping equipment will also be exempted from having to purchase a license, the state-owned newspaper quoted House Agriculture Committee chair Hisham El Hosary as saying.

Agriculture is the single-largest water consumer in the country. The sector alone was responsible for three-quarters of the water consumed by the entire country during fiscal year 2018-2019 — much of which is wasted thanks to outdated irrigation methods and an ailing network of canals. The Agriculture Ministry is trying to modernize irrigation systems used by farmers in eight of the nation’s governorates, while work is ongoing to upgrade canal networks as part of the government’s USD 50 bn plan for combating water security.

The reduced fee has the early green light: A report by Ahram Online suggests the proposal was greenlit in a plenary session on Tuesday, but it remains unclear if the entire Water Resources Act was approved or still making its way for a final vote.

The long-dormant Water Resources Act has been in the works since at least 2017, when it received cabinet approval. It faced several delays due to extensive discussions over some 27 House Agriculture Committee meetings. After sub-level committees were formed to resolve some of its contentious articles, the draft finally received a nod from the committee in 2019.

Besides the pumping fee, what does the act entail? According to some elements of the draft reported in 2019, the proposed law is expected to unite disparate bills on water into a single one, introduce stricter penalties for water waste, and address pollution, dwindling resources, and climate change, among other things.

The bill is an important element in Egypt’s fight against water scarcity. It’s one of two water-related laws that could help address some of the structural problems with how the country utilizes its water resources, which are increasingly under threat from climate change and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

*** WANT MORE? We covered water waste in agriculture in an issue of Hardhat last year.

SPEED ROUND: STARTUP WATCH

Regional startups have 32 mn reasons to be happy

Flat6Labs has launched a new fund in Abu Dhabi in partnership with ADQ: Sixty regional startups will receive USD 32 mn in funding over the course of three years through Flat6Labs Ignite, a new Abu Dhabi-based startup accelerator launched by Egyptian incubator Flat6Labs and ADQ’s venture platform DisruptAD, the two announced in a press release (pdf). Twenty startups will receive funding each year, and will be able to receive a seed investment of USD 150k, as well as a follow-on investment of up to USD 545k. Applications for the first cycle will be open until 30th of April 2021.

SPEED ROUND: POLITICS

Arab nations, assemble

Egypt gets Gulf backing on GERD: Saudi Arabia, Oman and Bahrain have given public backing to Egypt as it tries to prevent Ethiopia from pushing ahead with filling the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Saudi Arabia and Bahrain both expressed support for existing efforts to solve the dispute over how the dam will be filled and operated, with Riyadh calling on Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan to continue talks in search of a breakthrough. Negotiations have stalled in recent weeks after Ethiopia rejected a proposal by Egypt and Sudan to bring in international mediators, preferring to stick with the current African Union-led initiative.

The statements came shortly after President Abdel Fattah El Sisi warned Ethiopia against taking “a drop of Egypt’s water.” Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed reiterated last week that it intends to go ahead with the second filling of the dam this summer with or without an agreement, a step that El Sisi described yesterday as a “red line” for Egypt.

GO WITH THE FLOW

Earnings Watch: B Investments, GlaxoSmithKline

The EGX30 fell 1.6% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 1.21 bn (16.4% below the 90-day average). Foreign investors were net sellers. The index is down 2.6% YTD.

In the green: Orascom Financial (+5.0%), Heliopolis Housing (+0.6%) and Madinet Nasr Housing (+0.5%).

In the red: Fawry (-4.4%), Pioneers (-2.6%) and Ibnsina Pharma (-2.4%).


CIB shareholders will receive one additional share for every three they currently hold after the board approved a EGP 4.9 bn share capital increase in a general assembly meeting today, it said in a regulatory filing (pdf). The bank will distribute the new shares after obtaining regulatory approval.

EARNINGS WATCH-

B Investments’ net income increased 66% in 2020, reaching EGP 287.9 mn from EGP 173.2 mn in 2019, the company said in its annual earnings release (pdf) this morning. Revenues came in at EGP 370.2 mn last year, up 60% from EGP 230.7 mn the year before.

GlaxoSmithKline Egypt’s net income plunged more than 80% in 2020 to EGP 28.1 mn, down from EGP 142.6 mn the year before, it said in its earnings release (pdf) today. The sharp fall in profitability came despite revenues holding up through the year. The company’s top line grew 16% to almost EGP 2 bn, up from EGP 1.7 bn in 2019.

THE MACRO PICTURE

Are we in a global housing bubble?

A boom in global house prices is causing concern about a potential real estate bubble, with government stimulus and WFH policies driving unprecedented growth in the sector over the past year, the Wall Street Journal reports. Prices were already high in Europe, Asia and Canada in the lead-up to 2020, but the tns of USD in stimulus injected into the global economy to fight the pandemic has sent prices through the roof, placing policymakers in quandary about how to curb excessive risk-taking while supporting the economic recovery.

In detail: Average property prices among the 37 member countries of the OECD reached record highs in 3Q2020 after experiencing the highest y-o-y price inflation in two decades. Ultra-low interest rates, wage subsidies and debt holidays have kept prices in Europe rising, despite economies being hard hit by the pandemic. In Asia, China and South Korea have continued to see the cost of housing balloon, and in the Southern Hemisphere, prices in New Zealand and Australia are at record highs.

Time to pump the brakes? The buying frenzy has put policymakers in a predicament. On one hand, higher interest rates would prevent the market from overheating further, yet cheap credit is one of the pillars underpinning the rebound from the economic shock of the pandemic, and raising rates risks undermining financial markets and jeopardizing the recovery. Both the Danish and Dutch central banks have warned that super-lower borrowing costs are encouraging homeowners to take on unsustainable levels of debt, but policymakers are yet to take action.

New Zealand is having none of it: Having banned most foreigners from purchasing homes several years ago — a move designed to tackle one of the primary drivers of house price inflation — the government is again taking action against a stimulus-fuelled property boom which has seen the average house price in Auckland climb past USD 720k. From now on, the central bank will be required to consider property inflation when it sets interest rates — the first time ever that housing market stabilization has been added to a central bank’s remit.

Other available policy tools have had limited success: Last year China moved to curb access to finance for real estate developments, but prices have continued to climb, leading the country’s chief banking regulator to warn earlier this month of a market bubble.

A 2008-esque crash remains unlikely, WSJ says: Though US prices have increased since the onset of the pandemic, buyers this time around have better credit ratings and are putting down larger deposits, the WSJ says. Economists also suggest that, unlike 2008, purchases of homes around the world are being driven by demand, rather than speculation. Markets should cool down as interest rates rise and high property valuations encourage spending, the paper writes.

OFFICE LIFE

Many employees saw their responsibilities grow during the pandemic, but hardly anyone got a new title or raise, writes the Wall Street Journal. Work from home effectively transformed businesses and stretched many workforces thin, leading to longer working hours and less work-life balance, if any. The average workday increased by 8.2% in the pandemic’s early weeks, according to a Harvard Business School study of anonymised email and other data from 3.1 mn people worldwide. More than two third of respondents to a survey of US workers by job site Monster last summer said they had experienced burnout symptoms while working from home.

So why didn’t anyone complain? As job loss was rampant in parts of the world and the labor market became somewhat saturated, few wanted to try changing jobs amid the uncertainty of the pandemic. The International Labour Organization estimates that there was an unprecedented global loss of 114 mn jobs in 2020. In this environment, it makes sense that employees would hang on to what they had, even if they felt stuck or overworked. A Microsoft report also noted that time spent on Microsoft Teams meetings increased 2.5x in February 2021 while the number of emails delivered to commercial and education customers went up 40.6 bn compared to the same month in 2020.

Many are starting to see jumping ship as the best option: Over 40% of the global workforce is considering leaving their employer this year, according to the Microsoft report. Another study by HR firm Ceridian found that young people in North America are more likely to want to move to another workplace, with 75% of those under the age of 30 in the US either looking or open to new positions.

What should firms be doing to retain employees? HR managers should consider refreshing job descriptions and titles at least once a year as part of their due diligence, the WSJ quotes one industry expert as saying. Meanwhile, managers who have seen their employees taking on more responsibilities should be prepared to grant workers more autonomy and flexible remote-work arrangements, especially if their budget remains too tight to grant significant raises as compensation for extra work.

Feeling overstretched at your workplace? Try making a list of the job roles you think are within your purview, and attempt to set boundaries when it comes to tasks that are not. It can be good to be upfront with managers about how much time your tasks will take, to make sure you are not being overburdened. Alternatively, a change in job title to more accurately reflect your role can go a long way towards increasing your job satisfaction.

CALENDAR

31 March (Wednesday): Income tax deadline for individuals. Real estate tax filing deadline.

31 March (Wednesday): The Egyptian-Croation Business Forum will convene.

31 March (Wednesday): British Egyptian Business Association (BEBA) webinar on workplace harassment.

1-3 April (Thursday-Saturday): HVAC-R Egypt Expo, Egypt International Exhibition Center, New Cairo.

5-11 April: The Spring Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank Group will take place virtually.

6 April (Tuesday): French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Egypt working breakfast with Sovereign Fund of Egypt CEO Ayman Soliman.

7 April (Wednesday): British-Egyptian Business Association (BEBA) webinar on digital banking and fintech.

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

12 April (Sunday): Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will visit Egypt for GERD talks (watch: runtime: 1:28).

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): Coptic 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).

7-9 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.

17-20 June (Thursday-Sunday) : The International Exhibition of Materials and Technologies for Finishing and Construction (Turnkey Expo), Cairo International Conference Center.

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.

30 June- 15 July: National Book Fair.

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

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.

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