House challenges gov’t on daylight saving time.

God help us all: Parliament is moving to abolish daylight saving time. Nearly two months after Cabinet announced we’d be moving back to daylight savings time post-Ramadan, the House of Representatives voted yesterday to consign DST to the dustbin of history. The vote, which sends the proposed measure to Maglis El Dowla (the State Council) for review and consent, comes after the House Local Affairs Committee — under pressure from a petition signed by some 120 MPs — moved against Cabinet’s directive that the nation would move to DST on 8 July. We have officially lost count on how many times we’ve scrapped and revived daylight saving time since 2011.

EgyptAir has cancelled flights to Istanbul today after a terror attack at Ataturk International Airport left at least 36 dead and dozens injured, the national flag carrier said in an emailed statement late last night. The airline noted that there were no EgyptAir flights scheduled to take off from Istanbul at the time of the attack. (See “Spotlight,” below, for more coverage of the attack and of tentative moves by Erdogan to re-establish ties with Egypt.)

The Coordination Council will meet in July, Finance Minister Amr El Garhy told Al Borsa. The council’s meeting last week was cancelled, the paper noted. The council, of which Mohamed El-Erian is a member, provides a forum at which cabinet and the Central Bank of Egypt can coordinate fiscal and monetary policies. Other members include former CBE Governor Farouk El-Okdah, presidential economic advisor Abla Abellatif, the ministers of finance, investment, and trade and industry, as well as the governor of the CBE and members of his senior staff. The report doesn’t specify a date for the expected meeting.

Next hearing in Tiran, Sanafir hearing on 3 July: The Supreme Administrative Court will hold on Sunday, 3 July, its next hearing on the State Lawsuits Authority’s appeal of a lower court ruling declaring the islands of Sanafir and Tiran to be Egyptian.

Genena ruling expected 28 July: A Cairo misdemeanor court set 28 July as the date on which it would issue a ruling on the case against former Central Auditing Organization head Hisham Genena for spreading false news, according to Ahram Online.

We have a budget now, right? The House of Representatives has approved the government’s FY2016-17 draft budget, according to Reuters. Don’t crack open the champagne just yet, there is one more hurdle as the House Speaker Ali Abdel Aal said the government “should have sent the draft budget to the Council of State (Maglis El Dowla) first and since the government did not do so [the parliament] must fix this constitutional error.” (Is anyone else is having flashbacks to the early 2000s, when legislation was almost-routinely overturned — by the Supreme Constitutional Court, if memory serves?)

Total spending under the budget would swell by EGP 1.25-1.5 bn if the House approves an amendment to the Civil Service Act boosting annual wage increases to 7% from 5%, Finance Minister Amr El Garhy said on Tuesday, according to Ahram Online. The government agreed to the increase last week following a meeting with the House Manpower Committee, said Planning Minister Ashraf Al Araby.

Egypt postpones approval of World Bank funding until December: Egypt will require six extra months to approve a USD 1 bn tranche of funding from the World Bank Group, sources told Al Mal. The funding was supposed to be finalised in June, Al Mal adds, but the House of Representatives will need additional time to approve it. The WBG agreement for USD 3 bn in total needs to be approved by parliament and is conditional on the passage of reforms including the implementation of the value-added tax.

Egypt has been removed from the International Civil Aviation Organization’s list of conflict zones, which a senior Egyptian diplomat says could see the United Kingdom and Germany remove travel warnings for the Sinai Peninsula. Egyptian Ambassador to Canada Moataz Zahran told Al Masry Al Youm the move came after concerted lobbying from Egypt and other African nations. The ICAO launched its conflict zone information repository in April 2005, with Egypt on a list that also includes Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Pakistan and Syria. Information for the database was originally supplied by the UK, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time. Eleven countries are now on the list following Egypt’s removal.

Meanwhile, Thomas Cook is set to extend its suspension of flights to Sharm El Sheikh until mid-February in 2017 as the British government has not backed off from its warning against travel to the city, Al Borsa reported on Tuesday. In November of last year, the UK foreign secretary advised against all but essential travel through Sharm airport following the Metrojet crash. The Chairman of the Tourism Committee at the Egyptian-British Chamber of Commerce, Magdy Haneen, has said Egypt has met all requirements for private security procedures at Sharm El Sheikh airport. Thomas Cook had said in March that it was extending the suspension to 31 October 2016; it had previously been set to expire on 25 May.

European producers may further struggle to provide Egypt with ergot-free wheat due to wet weather, Whitney McFerron writes for Bloomberg. “Rains in France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia in recent weeks have created ideal conditions for crop disease just before most harvesting is set to start. Much of France, one of the largest suppliers of wheat in Egyptian tenders, got more than double the normal rain in the past month, World Ag Weather said. That’s boosting the risk of fungi including fusarium and ergot.” Unlike of a number of analysts, Swithun Still, a director of Morges, Switzerland-based trader Solaris Commodities SA, says Egypt should be able to source wheat as long as it allows an international standard level of 0.05% ergot. Still, “it’s too early to tell how much French grain might be affected by various diseases,” said Wiebke Baars, a consultant at Paris-based farm adviser Agritel.

Meanwhile, Egypt has strategic reserves of wheat sufficient to last until January 2017, Supply Minister Khaled Hanafy said. The government had announced in mid-June that it collected around 5 mn tonnes of wheat from domestic farmers this season, Al Mal reported.

The Central Bank of Egypt sold USD 117.1 mn at Tuesday’s regular auction, keeping the EGP stable against the greenback at 8.78, according to Reuters. On the parallel market, the EGP was seen hovering at 11.05-11.08 to the USD, strengthening slightly from 11.07-11.10, three traders told the wire.

Raya Holding has officially changed its name to Raya Holding for Financial Investments, according to a regulatory filing. The name change comes with a recalibration of the company’s business model to include managing IPOs, providing financial advisory, and managing third-party funds. Raya also amended its corporate governance statutes.

International Cooperation Minister Sahar Nasr was named a deputy chair of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s Board of Governors for 2016-17, the ministry announced. In a formal letter, EBRD President Sir Suma Chakrabarti expressed his appreciation of Nasr’s support of the bank. “The minister’s new position falls in line with the bank’s first strategy for its operations in Egypt after the latter became an EBRD’s country of operations and is expected to become the second-largest country of EBRD’s operations in the region by 2017.”

France sent data files from EgyptAir flight MS804’s flight data recorder back to Egypt yesterday after the device was fixed in France, Egyptian investigators said, according to Reuters. Egypt’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee is now set to start extracting and analyzing the data, which “will take days,” the committee said in a statement. On Monday, the Paris prosecutor’s office opened an involuntary manslaughter investigation into the crash, ruling out terrorism as a possible cause.

Seif Fikry’s Afkar Capital has launched the first exchange-traded fund in the UAE under new Emirati regulations, according to a company statement (pdf) that’s getting wide play in the GCC. “The Afkar S&P UAE UCITS ETF is the first liquid, fully fungible, fully tradeable and transparent exchange-traded fund listed in the Middle East under the UAE’s new regulations,” the statement notes. The UCITS-compliant fund will replicate the S&P UAE BMI Liquid 20/35 Capped Index, which includes the largest stocks by market cap across the ADX, DFM and Nasdaq Dubai. BNY Mellon was appointed fund administrator, Irish trustee, transfer agent and global custodian for the fund. The fund is regulated by the Emirates Securities and Commodities Authority (ESCA), the Abu Dhabi Global Market, the DFM, and the Central Bank of Ireland. The underlying index is up more than 7.5% YTD. Reuters, CPI Financial, Global Investor and Gulf News have coverage.

At least 36 people were killed and dozens wounded in a terror attack at Turkey’s largest airport, Istanbul Ataturk, according to Reuters. Two suspects reportedly blew themselves up outside a security checkpoint at the entry to the international terminal after police opened fire on them, said another Turkish official. Several have been wounded, according to Reuters. While no group has yet to claim responsibility, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has said that Daesh was likely behind the attack. The only other likely suspect would be the Kurdish militant group the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), designated a terror organization by NATO.

Regardless of which group ends up claiming responsibility, Daesh or the PKK, and without straying into victim-blaming against the people of Turkey, the attack is likely intimately tied to Erdogan’s policies in the region in general and in response to the Syrian civil war in particular, as described by Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, in commentary published on Monday regarding Turkey’s foreign policy, which is hopefully starting to finally take a more positive turn:

“Syria… is the failure within the failure of Ankara’s entire bid for leadership in the region… Where to begin? They believed they could convince Assad to reform early on in the crisis, they thought Ankara could coordinate and lead the Syrian opposition, they turned a blind eye to jihadis using Turkey to take part in the fight against Assad before actually coordinating with extremist groups, they were reluctant to allow members of the anti-Islamic State coalition to use Turkey’s airbases, they shot down a Russian bomber, and they failed to see how their unwillingness to join the fight against the self-declared Islamic State in order to snuff out Kurdish nationalism actually helped make Ankara’s Kurdish nightmares come true.”

“The Erdogan-Davutoglu team has created more foreign policy problems for Turkey than ever seen in the country’s modern memory… Davutoglu attempted to make Turkey a standalone Middle East power… Unfortunately, that policy has failed on virtually every front. Turkey’s ties with Egypt, Israel, Russia, and Syria all ruptured,” wrote Soner Cagaptay and James F. Jeffrey at the right-wing think tank the Washington Institute on Monday.

Following Turkey’s recent efforts to re-establish diplomatic ties with both Russia and Israel, Turkey has now indicated it wishes to begin mending fences with Egypt, according to statements made by Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim during a televised interview on Monday, Hurriyet reported. “Mr. President [Erdogan] has stated to the world since its beginning that this [Egypt’s post-2013 political order] is a coup and that we will never approve of this change in such a way. This is just one side of the matter. Let’s set this aside but on the other hand life goes on… Our ships sail to the Red Sea [through] the Suez Canal and from there they continue to [Saudi] Arabia, Jordan, Yemen and to the east of our Africa. Therefore we cannot cut loose our relations even if we wanted to,” the Turkish prime minister said.

What could have changed Erdogan’s calculations on Israel, Russia and now possibly Egypt? “The European Union’s disintegration has started,” Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Nurettin Canikli tweeted on Friday, Emre Peker at the Wall Street Journal (paywall) reported. Peker notes that with Brexit, Turkey has not only lost its “biggest champion,” in the EU, but the Leave campaign itself was built on anxieties over uncontrolled flows of migrants and xenophobia. Just last week, Erdogan threatened to hold his own referendum on acceding to a European Union that clearly doesn’t want him in the first place, likely over his frustrations that his policy to use the 2.7 mn Syrian refugees in Turkey as human bargaining chips to strong-arm his way into lifting visa restrictions on Turkish travel to the EU and eventual accession to the EU seems to have stalled. Erdogan also reportedly threatened to flood Europe with migrants if he did not receive more compensation to finance the presence of refugees in Turkey, Reuters reported last November, citing a Greek news site. EU officials would neither confirm nor deny that Erdogan had made the threats. Other factors weighing on the decision include diversifying sources of energy, as we noted in our past few issues regarding talks between Israel and Turkey on establishing a natural gas pipeline.

The foreign press was largely concerned with Lebanese ONTV host Liliane Daoud being deported to Beirut after resigning (or, as Daoud tweeted yesterday, was ousted) from the channel. The New York Times, the Guardian, the Times, Reuters and the BBC all have coverage. “This is a campaign against respectable media and free journalism,” Amer Tamam, editor-in-chief of Daoud’s Al Soura Al Kamla show, told the BBC.

Meanwhile, here at home, the bastion of journalistic integrity known as Al Wafd newspaper, mouthpiece of the fossilized remains of what was once a liberal political party of the same name, tweeted late Monday evening that Daoud was deported over having, what the “newspaper” claims, AIDS. The linked article, however, has since been 404’ed, while the tweet has yet to be deleted.

National Council for Women are not a fan of this Ramadan’s mosalsalat: The National Council for Women (NCW) is forming a committee to monitor the depiction of women in TV programs, commercials, and series during Ramadan, writes Reham Mokbel for Al-Monitor. “Women’s images are being tarnished,” said NCW member Dina Husayn, who was astounded that four Ramadan series portrayed lead female characters with psychological illnesses.

A nervous calm is returning to global markets in the wake of Brexit. Global markets and the GBP are recovering slighting even as David Cameron received a “frosty” welcome at his final European Union summit on Tuesday. “I very much hope we’ll seek the closest possible relationship in terms of trade and co-operation and security, because that is good for us and that is good for them,” he said.

But how? The Financial Times’ (paywall) Wolfgang Münchau thinks the “Norway option” is the least painful solution. That is, getting full access to the single European market but without say in EU politics. “No British company would have to leave Europe. No City firm would have to transfer employees to Dublin or Paris. The City of London would keep its EU passport, the ability to do business throughout the Union from London. The Norway option is the economically most benign of all. It is economically almost neutral.”

What’s the Norwegian option? A former Norwegian foreign minister outlined it all for the Guardian, but says it’s not all it is cracked up to be, writing “we pay, but we have no say. … As an EEA member, we do not participate in decision-making in Brussels, but we loyally abide by Brussels’ decisions. We have incorporated approximately three-quarters of all EU legislative acts into Norwegian legislation – and counting.” Oh, and Iceland’s President says Britain could join it in the EEA, the Independent reports.

As for us over on this side of the world: The FT’s Steve Johnson writes that even though “uncertainty, volatility, weaker economic growth and global flight from risk” in the wake of Brexit are bad news for emerging markets, there are some positives. “One is expectations for US monetary policy. Last Thursday, the day of the UK referendum, the markets were pricing-in the likelihood of a US rate rise by July 2017. Now, the market consensus is that the Federal Reserve will not move before July 2018. Given the tendency for emerging markets to sell off whenever US rate rises near — as capital flows back to the US from the emerging world — this could provide some relief for EM assets.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is studying a EUR 500 mn loan to Egyptian state banks to finance SME projects, said Bruno Denis, head of the Public Sector / South, Neighbouring Countries Department at EIB in a meeting with International Cooperation Minister Sahar Nasr, Al Mal reported. EIB is looking to bolster its current EUR 7.4 bn investments in Egypt through renewable energy, SME, infrastructure, transportation, and environmental projects, said Lucet.

Indian companies are interested in Alexandrian opportunities, particularly in the fields of education, trade, investment and culture and training, the Indian ambassador to Egypt Sanjay Bhattacharya said in a meeting with the governor of Alexandria Mohammed Abdul Zahir, Al Mal reported on Tuesday. India is considering building a commerce institute in the city, through the investment of a number of Indian businessmen set to visit Egypt in a few months. There are around 50 firms and factories with total investments of USD 30 bn in Borg El Arab. Bhattacharya also suggested that Alexandria and an Indian city sign a twin- or sister-city agreement to boost ties.

The latest micro-flap with Sudan: Sudanese Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour accused the Egyptian government of delaying the release of property belonging to Sudanese miners who were detained for five months on charges of illegally crossing the border, Sudan Tribune reported. The miners were released in August 2015 as part of a presidential pardon, but equipment worth as much as USD 8 mn is still being held by the Egyptian Armed Forces, the newspaper alleges.

Brazil is interested in developing a free trade agreement between Egypt and Mercosur region, which includes Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela, among others, said Marcela Carvalho, advisor to the Minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, to Ambassador to Brazil Alaa Roushdy, Ahram reported on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Brazilian Minister of Agriculture Blairo Maggi has expressed interest in importing fertilizers from Egypt.

The Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company has demanded that solar power outfits in Aswan licensed under the feed-in tariff system pay the third installment of a cost-sharing agreement by 1 July, amounting to EGP 10 mn per firm, Al Borsa reported on Tuesday. The announcement comes after several international institutions pulled back from financing the renewable energy projects after failing to reach an agreement on arbitration with the Electricity Ministry. In the event that the payment is not made, the government will liquidate bank letters of guarantee, Cairo Solar CEO Hisham Tawfik said, adding that the withdrawal of funding will lead to the shutdown of projects. Moreover, CIB has formed a committee to figure out a way to finance the projects after the dispute, but it will likely back out from the first phase of the projects, said Tarek Ammar, a private sector specialist at the African Development Bank in Egypt.

The Finance Ministry will settle the net difference between taxes owed by the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation and the subsidies provided by the government to the entity in a few days, which would amount to EGP 40 bn, an unnamed government source said, Al Borsa reported on Tuesday. According to the current fiscal year’s budget, energy subsidies amount to EGP 61 bn.

Gas prices will be unified across all factories at a reasonable price that is beneficial to all parties and appropriate to the current budget deficit, Trade and Industry Minister Tarek Kabil has said, Ahram reported on Tuesday.

The Trade and Industry Ministry will tender 1 mn sqm in industrial land in July as part of its plan to issue 10 mn sqm in industrial land by the end of the year, Trade and Industry Minister Tarek Kabil told Al Masry Al Youm. As we had reported that the ministry issued 1 mn sqm in Badr City as part of the same plan through the Industrial Development Authority. The cost of the land is expected to fall following the transfer of the right to issue industrial land from the General Authority for Investment to the Industrial Development Authority, Kabil told Al Masry Al Youm.

Ezz Steel will only invest USD 350 mn in a second melting furnace if it is guaranteed sufficient natural gas, the company said in a statement, AMAY reported. The first license the company obtained was to implement a factory in Ain Al Sokhna at a cost of USD 550 mn, Corporate Marketing Officer George Matta said. The industry needs set customs on imports in the range of 10%, he added.

The Committee for Private Sector Partnership has approved issuing projects to build schools to the private sector by 15 August, Al Mal reported. The committee is currently preparing financial and technical feasibility studies and will complete the contract by 31 July. The project will see 200 schools constructed in its first phase, and private sector companies will operate and profit from the schools for 40 years.

he Housing Minister is looking into granting some consulting firms the right to issue building permits for new projects, in an effort to encourage specialization and facilitate the process for potential investors, Minister Moustafa Madbouly said, Ahram reported on Tuesday. The selection process is set to be rigorous, he added, with the government likely to pick consulting firms from each governorate.

Tarek Nour Communications (TNC) said the government did not receive discounts for its Ramadan promotional campaigns, CEO Tarek Nour told Al Mal. Each of the campaigns, designed to rationalise consumption, combat corruption, promote Egyptian products, and empower women, was created in coordination with the relevant ministry. Nour added that the campaigns were awarded to TNC by direct order and not a bidding process as it requires experience and an appropriate track record.

Electronics retailer B.Tech has completed an EGP 250 mn capital increase that it will use to upgrade its infrastructure and open new branches with a focus on mega stores, Amwal Al Ghad reported. B Tech launched four branches in 1H2016 including a 1,200 sqm branch in Luxor, said Chairman Mahmoud Khattab.

Coca Cola is set to pump USD 500 mn in investment in Egypt in the next three years, said Public Affairs and Communications Manager at Coca Cola MENA Ghada Makady, Al Mal reported on Tuesday. She added that the company has completed the development of 40 villages so far, as part of its 2011 plan to develop a 100 villages by 2020 in terms of health and education.

The General Authority for the Suez Canal Economic Zone will sign an agreement with Singapore to manage the second container station’s pier at East Port Said in August, authority chief Ahmed Darwish told Al Masry Al Youm. Egypt is constructing the station over an area of 2,000 sqm, he added. The pier will be completed by February 2017. The authority is also meeting with international companies to build a pier for cars and cargo, he added. Al Shorouk is reporting that the authority is revisiting the tax percentage on profits at the zone based on requests from investors to lower it below 22.5% to increase competitiveness.

The General Authority for the Suez Canal Economic Zone is considering doubling the capacity of Port Arish as long as security at North Sinai allows it, Chairman Ahmed Darwish said, without disclosing any more details on the potential move, Al Mal reported on Tuesday.

The ISIL affiliate in Sinai is of most concern to the US government following that in Libya, according to testimony by US Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL Brett H. McGurk in his testimony (pdf) to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday. “We assess [Wilayat Sina] was responsible for destroying the civilian Metrojet airliner nine months ago… We estimate its manpower to be from several hundred up to 1,000, with some estimates far less than that, and some slightly more… The Egyptian Army has increased combat operations and closed almost all the tunnels that facilitated arms smuggling along the Gaza border… The Sinai security situation also impacts the Multi-National Forces and Observers (MFO) mission. The US is firmly committed to supporting the Treaty of Peace and MFO operations.”