EnterprisePM — Is the state privatization program back on?

Good afternoon, everyone, and the capital markets-intensive newsweek continues.

Is the state privatization program finally waking up from its slumber? We begin with Public Enterprises Minister Hisham Tawfik, who revealed that two or three state-owned companies will sell shares on the EGX in 3Q2021. We have chapter and verse in the Speed Round below.

The news comes as Taaleem looks set to make its trading debut on Wednesday. Shares in the higher education management company will begin trading on the EGX on 7 April under the ticker TALM.

Taaleem raised EGP 2 bn after wrapping up the sale of 49% of its shares to institutional and retail investors, the EGX announced on its daily newsfeed. Retail investors snapped up 5% of the 357.8 mn shares offered on the stock exchange at EGP 5.75 apiece in an offering that was more than 29x oversubscribed when it closed last week. They now own 2.45% of the company. Institutional investors, meanwhile, bought the remaining 95% to hold 46.55% of all outstanding shares. The private placement portion of the IPO was 2.34x oversubscribed.

Another good week for startups? Sawari Ventures closed its EGP 440 mn Egypt-focused tech fund, bringing the total value up for offer to Egyptian companies under a unified platform with a Netherlands-based fund to north of EGP 1 bn. It becomes the latest in a series of funds that have been securing investments to channel to startups, after private equity firm Ezdehar said it may be looking at a first close for its second fund, worth USD 120 mn, at the end of May. We expect more announcements to come.

HAPPENING NOW- The Spring Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank Group are now officially underway. Central bankers, ministers of finance and development, private sector executives, representatives from civil society organizations and academics currently discussing how to ensure debt sustainability for economic recovery in west and central Africa. The topics up for discussion for the rest of the meetings — which run through next Sunday, 11 April — 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.

The IMF’s updated World Economic Outlook is also due out tomorrow, which you can find here on the report’s landing page when it is out.

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

• Egypt's FX reserves inched up by almost USD 140 mn in March to USD 40.34 bn.
• Egypt could impose stricter measures in April and May to combat a third wave of covid-19.
• Dual-fuel vehicles delivered in the pilot phase of the government’s natgas transition plan are now on the road.

Subscribe to Enterprise

FOR TOMORROW-

Stock market regulators will meet to discuss potentially introducing restrictions on margin trading, Rania Yacoub, a member of the Financial Regulatory Authority’s (FRA) advisory committee, told the local press today. The FRA will sit down with representatives from the EGX and clearinghouse MCDR to discuss proposals including a maximum limit on the volume of margin trades allowed for each security, investor, and for the market as a whole, the authority’s deputy chairman, Islam Azzam, said in a statement.

This is what industry players wanted: Representatives from a handful of brokerages and custodians recently called for the maximum limits after the volume of high-risk margin transactions reached EGP 5 bn on the EGX. It’s expected to increase further as the FRA has green-lit a new EGP 1 bn+ fund to support margin lending in a bid to boost trading volumes.

The French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Egypt is organizing a webinar on the government's Real Estate Wealth Inventory and Management Project in collaboration with LYNX Strategic Business Advisors tomorrow at 4pm. The event’s keynote speaker will be Egypt’s Deputy ICT Minister Khaled El Attar who will discuss administrative development, digital transformation and automation. He will be joined by Carrefour COO Hervé Majidier, Tameer CEO Antoine El Khoury, and Voltalia Egypt Country Manager Karim Elazzawi. You can register for the event using this form.

???? CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

ITIDA is hosting the ‘Hangout with VCs’ event this Thursday, 8 April in collaboration with The Financial Times’ The Next Web — a well-established global network of investors and VCs focusing on tech — that will be presented with Egyptian startups, according to a press release (pdf). Startups can submit applications until the day of the event here.

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-

Users of Google Maps app will soon be directed to the route with the lowest carbon footprint if it has a similar ETA as the fastest route, in line with Google’s commitment to be the first multinational to go carbon free by 2030, the company said in a blog post last week. The feature is also part of Google’s plans to bring over 100 AI-powered improvements to the real-time mapping app, including adding a feature that will guide you through indoor malls, airports, stadiums and other large public places in the near future.

A long time phone manufacturer hangs their hat: LG Electronics will close its mobile phone manufacturing business by the end of July to instead focus on growth areas such as EV components, connected devices, smart homes, robotics, AI, and B2B solutions, the company said in a statement. Phones constituted 8.2% of LG sales last year and while there will be a short-term loss of revenue, the company expects the closure to be financially favorable in the long run, reports Bloomberg. Investors signalled a similar sentiment with LG shares rising 4.1% following the announcement.

The Bank of Japan began testing a digital JPY, joining other central banks worldwide who have been ramping up testing on digital currencies. The BoJ is starting phase 1 testing on issuing the digital currency, which will be conducted until March 2022 and will focus on ore functions such as issuance, distribution and redemption, it said in a press release (pdf). The Japanese central bank will then proceed with plans for phase 2 that will examine more detailed functions including setting limits on the amount of digital JPY each entity can hold, according to Reuters. BOJ Executive Director Shinichi Uchida hinted at the possibility of launching a payments and end-user trial phase.

???? ON THE TUBE TONIGHT-

(All times in CLT)

Some of us aren’t crying because of this movie (sob). We have allergies. But it is pretty sad: The 2016 film Moonlight visualizes a boy’s internal struggles across several stages of his life, doing so adeptly and with amazing camera work and a powerfully minimalist script. The film follows Chiron, an African-American living in Miami, who struggles with his race and identity throughout his childhood, adolescence, adulthood with each stage depicted separately. The Oscar-winning film is ultimately quite sad and it made at least one of us here in Enterprise cry. The film is “looking to prompt empathy and introspection most of all,” The Atlantic says, while The New York Times attempts to sum up Chiron’s confusion with a few questions “How tough are you supposed to be? How cruel? How tender? How brave? And how are you supposed to learn?” You can watch Moonlight on Netflix or Amazon Prime.

Catch the Barcelona match today in La Liga, as Valladolid faces off against Barcelona at 9pm.

Meanwhile, gameweek 30 in the English Premier League is coming to an end today, with Everton to play against Crystal Palace at 7pm and Wolves to go up against West Ham at 9:15pm.

In our local Premier League, Al Ittihad and Al Mokawloon will hit the field at 7pm.

???? OUT AND ABOUT-

The French Institute in Cairo is holding the opening for exhibition Maalesh by Léon Dubois today. Dubois travelled across the Mediterranean and documented his journey, the cities he saw, and the overall atmosphere using his camera. The exhibition will run until 6 May.

Agouza’s Cairo Jazz Club has on Tourkey and Selim tonight for Closed Circuit at 8pm. The DJing duo will spin their set Lines.

???? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

Come Fly the World explores history during the 1960s and 1970s through the eyes of female flight attendants flying across the globe during major world events such as the Vietnam War, decolonization in Africa, and the fight for women’s rights. Author Julia Cooke follows Pan Am flight attendants who jetted high-flyers around the world in sleek, comfortable planes, coming into contact with some of the biggest names of the time and listening in to conversations that would shift world politics and economies. The female leads of the tale come from different backgrounds and races and unite in tasks such as bringing home soldiers and evacuating children. You can check out this book review by The Washington Informer or read more about these Pan Am attendants in this piece by Conde Nast Traveler.

???? TOMORROW’S WEATHER- Leave your jackets at home tomorrow. The mercury is going up to 35°C during the day and will fall to 19°C at night in an unseasonably hot day tomorrow, according to our favorite weather app.

Two or three state-owned companies will sell shares on the EGX in 3Q2021, reviving the long-dormant state-privatization program, Public Enterprises Minister Hisham Tawfik said during an industry conference today, according to Reuters. Tawfik didn’t mention the names of the companies lined up, or whether the offerings will be IPOs or secondary sales.

Is e-Finance going first? The IPO of the state’s e-payments arm e-Finance is expected sometime during the second half of 2021, Chairman Ibrahim Sarhan said earlier this week in a statement that coincides with the timeline provided by Tawfik. E-Finance was among a lineup of state enterprises that were originally expected to hit the bourse in pre-pandemic 2019. But the government put a pause to its listings program, citing a series of unexpected delays that came just before covid further stalled the program. Unconfirmed press reports suggested Banque du Caire will be another state-owned enterprise whose IPO will materialize by year-end.

A quick recap of the program: The state privatization program ran headlong into global market turmoil since it was announced in 2018 and has seen transactions postponed multiple times. It is due to include both stake sales by already-listed companies and fresh IPOs. Out of the two dozen companies slated to IPO or offer secondary stakes, only a single offering has materialized: Tobacco monopoly Eastern Company’s 4.5% secondary offering in March 2019. Banque du Caire had planned to debut 20-30% of its shares on the EGX in April 2020 but shelved plans due to the onset of the pandemic. Alexandria Containers, Abu Qir Fertilizers, and Sidi Kerir Petrochemicals have also pushed back stake sales.

Egypt’s non-oil private sector continued to contract for the fourth consecutive month in March, but optimism reached new highs as the vaccine rollout picked up steam in recent weeks, according to IHS Markit purchasing managers’ index (PMI) figures (pdf). The purchasing managers’ index (PMI) gauge dropped to 48.0 last month, below the 50.0 mark — which separates expansion from contraction — and down from 49.3 in February as output fell throughout the final month of the first quarter of the year. Bloomberg also took note of the story.

The March figure is the first m-o-m drop since it slid into contraction territory in December 2020 — the lowest reading since June 2020. Despite that, businesses are hopeful activity will rise over the coming 12 months, with respondent optimism near a 29-month high last seen in July 2020.

Output fell at its sharpest since June. This decline, along with a slump in new business inflows, was the largest driver of the lower headline figure. New business also dropped at its “joint-quickest rate” during March. The survey attributed the quickest downturn since the original impact of the pandemic — which led to a sharp drop in the PMI reading to an all-time low of 29.7 in April — to weak market demand and ongoing covid restrictions.

New export sales also fell for the first time in three months, after having seen record growth in February, as low demand and restrictions led to fewer orders. This allowed firms to work on backlogs, drawing from existing inventories which fell for the third consecutive month.

Consequently, this translated into a sharp drop in purchasing activity, with businesses citing fewer contracts and a previous build-up in stocks as the driver behind weak input demand. They also experienced “the worst delay to input deliveries since last June.” Naturally, muted activity meant less pressure to build capacity and contributed to less employment, leading to a streak of job losses that is now extending into a year and a half.

On the flipside, inflationary pressures were less stark. While there was a “solid increase” in a lot of input prices including metals (think, commodities supercycle), plastics, and cardboard, the weak demand for those inputs softened overall price growth to a nine-month low.

The ultimate silver lining is record-high optimism. Over half of the survey respondents said they expect activity to pick up this year. The government’s recent expansion of the national vaccine program to cover more segments of Egypt’s population fueled hopes of a more speedy return to normal than was previously thought. "The outlook for future business activity was more positive, as businesses predicted that economic conditions will start to pick up soon as vaccines feed through to a greater reopening of the economy, IHS Markit economist David Owen said.

Meanwhile, in the GCC:

• Non-oil private sector business activity in the UAE took a record turn for the better, with the country’s PMI gauge (pdf) increasing to 52.6 in March from 50.6 in February, marking the quickest pace of expansion in 20 months. THe upturn was buoyed largely by the UAE’s vaccine rollout program, which is among the best in the world.
• Saudi’s PMI (pdf) fell slightly to 53.2 in March from 53.9 the previous month, reaching 3.8 points below its peak in January after slowing down for three consecutive months.

Cairo-based VC firm Sawari Ventures has reached final close on its Egypt-focused tech fund, raising USD 28 mn (EGP 440 mn) from a handful of local and regional institutional investors, the company has announced in a statement (pdf). This fund, which is domiciled in Egypt, will invest in parallel with a separate Netherlands-based fund under one unified platform, managed by Sawari. The platform’s combined commitments is now at USD 70 mn (EGP 1.1 bn), after the Netherlands-based fund separately raised commitments of USD 42 mn.

Local state-owned financial institutions dominated the fund’s close, with the National Bank of Egypt, Banque Misr, Banque du Caire, Misr Insurance Group and Suez Canal Bank all contributing to the fund. Ekuity — an investment company owned by Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund — was the outlier, being the sole foreign entity to invest.

Sawari has deployed a third of the capital, so far…: The fund has so far invested around a third of the fund’s capital, primarily in companies in the fintech, fabless chip makers and transport and logistics spaces, Sawari Managing Partner Hany Al Sonbaty told Enterprise. The money has been split between 12 companies, four of which have been announced. The other eight companies operate in the semiconductor, ecommerce and fintech sectors, and will be announced later this quarter, he added.

…and expects to complete the process by the end of next year: The fund will invest another USD 15-20 mn during the rest of this year and hopes to be fully invested by the end of 2021, Al Sonbaty said. Between USD 1-5 mn will be invested in each firm, which will be selected from a range of tech-driven sectors, including fintech, health and education technologies, and software.

Around 40% of the fund will likely be reserved for follow-on investments, Al Sonbaty added.

The presence of local institutions marks a change from the first close, which was dominated by international development finance institutions such as the European Investment Bank, the UK’s CDC and the French Development Agency’s private sector financing arm Proparco.

Why the switch to local partners? The investment platform is actually made up of two separate funds which invest in Egyptian companies in parallel: One foreign-domiciled and one regulated in Egypt by the Financial Regulatory Authority, Al Sonbaty explained. “This investment platform is the first of its kind in Egypt and allows us to bring together foreign and local capital into the ecosystem which is critical for the long term sustainability of the venture capital asset class,” he said.

FRA orders do-overs on SPMD, Prime Speed valuations ahead of takeover: The Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) has ordered the reassessment of the fair value report on diagnostics and healthcare firm Speed Medical (SPMD) ahead of its acquisition of sister company Prime Speed Healthcare, the market regulator said in a statement (pdf). The FRA also ordered a re-evaluation of Prime Speed Healthcare to ensure both companies’ fair value reports are “compatible with Egyptian financial valuation standards,” the statement said. Speed Medical’s board of directors also rejected the valuation, according to a separate statement (pdf) yesterday, with Chairman Mahmoud Lasheen telling CNBC Arabia that the board does not believe the valuation reflects the company’s true value (watch, runtime: 6:53).

What the auditors think SPMD and Prime Speed are worth: Eagle Capital — which prepared the report on behalf of Economic Group Financial Consulting Company — had valued Speed Medical at EGP 2.4 bn and Prime Speed at EGP 1.8 bn. SPMD will not be hiring a new auditor to prepare the revised fair value reports, the company said in a separate statement (pdf) Monday. The company will ask the independent auditor to wait until 1Q2021 results are issued before reassessing, it said in the statement.

The rejection follows the SPMD board's signoff earlier this week on the takeover of Prime Speed in a transaction that would give Speed Medical 100% ownership of Prime Speed for Medical Services, in which it currently holds a 30% stake. Speed Medical will proceed with the acquisition once it obtains 75% General Assembly approval, it said in the disclosure Sunday.

Did the EGX 100 drag the rest of the market down? The benchmark EGX30 lost 1.5% today, recovering slightly after falling 2.5% in intra-day trading. This followed a 5% plunge in the broad-based EGX100 that triggered an automatic suspension of trading. Trading was light, with total turnover of EGP 872 mn. (38.7% below the 90-day average) Foreign investors were net sellers.

In the green: Abu Qir Fertilizers (+4.9%), Eastern Company (+2.1%) and ElSewedy Electric (+2.0%).

In the red: Pioneers (-8.6%), MM Group (-6.4%) and Orascom Financial (-6.4%).

So why did the markets spaz out today? The EGX first took a hit from pessimism among foreign investors over ongoing GERD negotiations, says Prime Holding head of research Amr Hussein Elalfy. Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said yesterday that today is the “deadline” to bring negotiations back on track, which Elalfy suggests means that foreign investors will sit on the sidelines and ride out the coming period of uncertainty.

The drop then triggered a series of margin calls that snowballed the selling pressure, this time from local retail investors, adds Elalfy, who highlights the need for a fully operational short-selling mechanism that could have curbed the impact.

New margin trading regulations and potential limits are also causing a stir as investors, brokerages and banks involved will be required to settle their positions to meet the new regs, says Sigma Capital head of equity research Abou Bakr Emam.

The UEFA Champions League is getting a new format starting from the 2024 season: UEFA is entering into negotiations for the new broadcast and commercial contracts for the 2024-25 season. The organization behind the Champions League is considering running the season under a new format, dubbed the “Swiss Model” reports AP. Today we look at what this new format actually entails and why UEFA is considering it.

What’s changing? The 32-team group stage is getting scrapped, in favor of a 36-team single league format with fixtures determined through a seeding system of the clubs’ historic performance. Each team plays a total of 10 games, split between home and away.

The purpose is to not send half the participants home within six games: In the new format, every team is guaranteed 10 games, and the top tier clubs will square off more frequently, which translates to higher ticket-sales and broadcast ratings.

The top eight advance, the bottom 12 are eliminated, and teams ranked 9th to 24th enter a play-off stage to advance another eight contenders and form a 16-team knockout stage, NYT reports.

Who gets the four new slots? One goes to France’s Ligue 1, putting it on equal footing with England, Spain, Italy and Germany. A second is reserved for a team that performed well in a recent Champions League, but still has to go through qualifying match rounds. An example of that is Dutch team Ajax, who despite making the 2019 semi finals still had to pass through two qualifying group stages in the 2019-20 season since the Eredivisie guarantees no spots in the Champions League.

The remaining two slots are more controversial: Intended as safety nets for underperforming clubs, the two slots are reserved for teams with the best club coefficient, a metric used by UEFA to rank teams based on their performance in the five previous seasons, but finished in fifth to seventh place in their domestic campaign.

This means any of Europe’s top five leagues could theoretically have six participants, if two of their seasoned teams finish between fifth and seventh place, leaving out runners up in other European countries.

Timeline: The UEFA executive committee sign-off was pushed to April 19. Inside sources told the BBC they are certain the proposal will be ratified.

WANT MORE? The Athletic’s Tifo Football Youtube channel has a detailed rundown of the changes (watch, runtime 4:59).

World economy to face uneven growth post-pandemic despite a speedy recovery, says Bloomberg: The global economy, on average, is on pace for 2021 to register its fastest growth rate in over half a century, but it could take a while for some countries to join a post-pandemic charge which the US and China are leading.

The rebound is expected to see the world economy growing at a 6.9% clip this year, the fastest pace on record since the 1960s, Bloomberg Economics forecasts. Optimism is driven by the threat of covid-19 finally tapering down, seemingly endless US stimulus, and pent-up spending from USD tns-worth of savings. Talk of a more optimistic outlook comes as the IMF / World Bank Spring Meetings kicked off today, bringing together policy and business leaders to discuss the outlook for global economic growth.

Expect more optimistic prospects for global growth from the IMF, with improved forecasts owed to the US expanding stimulus and its successful vaccine rollout plan, the Washington-based lender’s Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said last month. The recovery, however, is penciled in to turn out uneven, with only “a small group of countries … well ahead of their pre-crisis GDP levels, Georgieva said.

Who’s lagging behind? The EU, Japan, and most emerging markets, Bloomberg Economics finds. The former two heavyweights are contracting. Parts of Europe are still in lockdown amid obstacles to vaccine rollouts and a joint stimulus fund on hold, and the story is quite similar in Japan, whose large population is leading to vaccine stumbling blocks and its stimulus measures falling short of those of the US.

Over in the EM-verse, there are lots of vulnerabilities to be tested. Many EMs remain exposed to elevated borrowing costs as rising US interest rates draw capital away. Borrowing problems pose “major challenges” and especially to middle-income countries with large financing needs and large debt stocks, Georgieva said in a virtual speech last month ahead of the spring meetings. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is also speaking along the same lines, warning that a large number of EM economies are being put at serious risk of default.

Brazil, Russia and India are also being outpaced by China. The world’s second-largest economy has already been successful in driving a post-covid rebound after having emerged from the health crisis before everyone else, and is now comfortable winding back some of its pandemic-era stimulus, suggest Bloomberg.

Where does Egypt stand? Despite growth figures falling short of pre-covid targets and expectations, we were relatively better off compared to much of the world. The economy was able to avoid a contraction, growing at a 3.6% clip in 2020, and is expected to achieve near pre-pandemic rates in 2022, the African Development Bank said in its 2021 Economic Outlook. The country’s debt levels also increased by a smaller amount than its MENA peers, thanks to a primary budget surplus and fiscal buffers that had been rebuilt through the IMF-backed reform program that ended in 2019. Covid-19, however, put pressure on the government’s short-term refinancing needs and widened Egypt’s current account deficit as it brought tourism, a key source of revenue and output growth, to a complete standstill during much of 2020.

How exposed are we to rising US yields? In the short and medium-term, not by much, analysts we spoke with last month tell us. And while other EMs have been seeing outflows as a result of higher US treasury yields, Egypt has largely skirted that fate. That said, a long-term increase in US treasury yields and the return of inflation globally (as the world recovers from the pandemic) could create issues for foreign portfolio investment down the road, they tell us.

April: The government’s fuel pricing committee is scheduled to meet for its quarterly review of prices

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

5-6 April (Monday-Tuesday): Cityscape Egypt virtual conference on real estate investment.

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

6 April (Tuesday): French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Egypt will host the “Egyptian Government's Real Estate Wealth Inventory and Management Project” webinar.

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

8 April (Thursday): The Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) will host a matchmaking virtual event, dubbed “Hangout with VCs.”

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.

12-15 September (Sunday-Wednesday): Sahara Expo: the 33rd International Agricultural Exhibition for Africa and the Middle East.

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.

12-14 October (Tuesday – Thursday) Mediterranean Offshore Conference, Alexandria, Egypt

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.

1-3 November (Monday-Wednesday): Egypt Energy exhibition on power and renewable energy, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo, Egypt

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

29 November – 2 December (Monday-Thursday): Egypt Defense Expo

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.