Cabinet shuffle expected soon as Ismail government becomes caretaker

Wait, did the Ismail Cabinet just resign? That’s the tenor of the clickbait headlines from the local press on what is a standard procedure after the inauguration of a president. Prime Minister Sherif Ismail has submitted his cabinet’s collective resignation to President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, who was sworn in for his second term on Saturday. El Sisi promptly appointed the cabinet to continue in a caretaker capacity until a new government is formed, according to a statement from Ittihadiya.

You can still expect the Council of Ministers to hold its weekly meeting today as the rest of us sit around and speculate about who will be in and who will be out when the new cabinet is formed.

New ambassadors coming? President El Sisi also held a meeting yesterday with newly appointed Egyptian ambassadors, according to Ittihadiya. El Sisi urged them to present an “accurate picture” of Egypt’s political and economic situation abroad. We have yet to hear the names of the ambassadors or their respective posts, but we’ll be keeping an eye out.

Separately, El Sisi said yesterday that Egypt will see “a number of great achievements that will be inaugurated” following the Eid El Fitr celebrations. He praised Egyptians for their patience during the economic reform measures, adding that in two years, he hopes people “will see Egypt in a different place,” according to Youm7.

Jordan’s King Abdullah tapped former World Bank economist Omar Al Razzaz with the task of forming a new government,Reuters reports. Al Razzaz’s appointment comes after protests against proposed tax increases and austerity measures led Prime Minister Hani Mulki to resign. The Harvard graduate had worked with the World Bank in Washington and the Middle East and was education minister in the outgoing government.

Wall Street doesn’t see the Emerging Markets Zombie Apocalypse spreading. “This year won’t see a re-run of nightmare on EM street. That’s the growing message from Wall Street, at least three of whose leading banks have been singing the praises of emerging markets, as well as more than a few money managers. And now, a former central banker has joined the chorus,” Bloomberg reports, name-checking Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup as among the optimists. This comes as emerging markets “suffered their biggest portfolio outflows in a year and a half in May,” according to data from the Institute of International Finance. Some USD 12.3 bn fled the asset class last month, “split roughly equally between EM bonds and equities.”

Think M&A is the way to grow? Ask yourself how easy it will be to put the pieces together post-acquisition. Facebook is determined to make more money off your use of WhatsApp, and the WSJ has the inside story of why its founders left bns on the table on the way out of the door in protest. The warning signs were there from the beginning, and played out in odd contract clauses and fights over office noise — and who got the better bathrooms. Read: Behind the messy, expensive split between Facebook and WhatsApp’s founders.

In miscellany this morning:

• Abu Dhabi has announced a USD 13.6 bn stimulus program to reignite economic growth over the coming three years.
• The Wall Street Journal has a new editor-in-chief. Newsroom veteran Matt Murray moves up as Gerry Baker becomes editor-at-large, where he will write, do television and host conferences and events.
• The iconic designer and entrepreneur Kate Spade is dead of an apparent suicide.
• If you’re still getting your head around what’s new in the beta of iOS 12, Macstories has your back.

Your Ramadan rundown for today:

Bank hours run 09:30 am to 01:30 pm for customers and from 09:00 am to 02:00 pm for employees.

The EGX is running shorter trading hours. The trading session kicks off at 10:00 am, but closes at 1:30 pm. Tap or click here for the full schedule.

So, when do we eat? For those of us observing, Maghrib is at 6:54 pm CLT today. You’ll have until 3:09 am tomorrow to finish your sohour.

PSA- Is it a heat wave, or just “summer”: Our favourite weather app shows the mercury rising to 37°C in Cairo today, hovering between that mark and 42°C through a week from Friday.

A delegation from Russia’s Rosatom Overseas is expected in Egypt after Eid to organize a “corporate-community dialogue” in Dabaa, where the company will begin building a USD 30 bn nuclear power plant in 2020, a source at the Nuclear Power Plants Authority tells Al Shorouk. The dialogue aims to clear up any misunderstandings about the project and its impact on the surrounding environment. The delegation will also look into the possibility of upgrading the experimental nuclear reactor in Inshas in Sharqiya, as we noted before.

Who will manage the Grand Egyptian Museum? Egypt will announce on Sunday the details of the prequalification stage of a tender to manage the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), according to the Investment Ministry (pdf). Antiquities Minister Khaled Anany said a couple of months back that the ministry expects to drum up significant interest. The USD 1 bn museum is set to be completed in December this year, but will hold a soft opening to visitors in the next few months.

Museum gets love from CNN: The GEM will be “the world’s largest museum devoted to a single civilization” and is set to house tens of thousands of artifacts that have undergone restoration “by an army of conservationists and archaeologists, a long overdue operation for a country with thousands of years of civilization to preserve,” Ian Lee writes for CNN. Check out our special tour of the under-construction museum from a few months back.

Saudi Arabia could be upgraded to MSCI emerging markets status this month.

The central bank’s monetary policy committee will meet on 28 June to review interest rates. With the meeting happening just days before the start of a new state fiscal year (and the subsidy cuts it will surely bring), conventional wisdom so far sees the committee leaving interest rates on hold.

Do you have an idea for a tech-enabled business that could make agriculture in Egypt more efficient? The World Bank may have seed funding, access to mentorship, and an accelerator / incubator program for you through its “DigitalAG4Egypt” program. The deadline for submissions is 1 July. Tap or click here for more information.

Unified port fees will permanently come into effect in July, SCZone chief Mohab Mamish said yesterday, Youm7 reports. While the final details of the new fees are yet to be made public, they’re based on a trial run that began last year in a bid to eliminate competition between the country’s different ports. Mamish had agreed on the measure with Transport Minister Hisham Arafat following a series of exits by major shipping firms who complained about Egypt’s high port fees. Egypt has been offering discounts and other incentives to attract more traffic to its ports.

They’re still on hiatus. Expect the nation’s talking heads to resume their bloviations immediately during / after Eid.

The House of Representatives signed off on the FY2018-19 budget during yesterday’s general assembly session, Reuters reports. The budget, which still needs to be accepted and signed into law by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, targets a deficit of 8.4% of GDP and a primary deficit surplus of 2%. It also sees increased spending on health and education and more focused spending on social welfare as the government moves to slash fuel and energy subsidies further at the start of the new fiscal year. You can read our refresher here. The new budget comes into effect on 1 July.

House approves hike in government service fees: In other news from the House, the general assembly voted yesterday to approve a hike in government service fees and introduce new levies on mobile phone users, Youm7 reports. Administrative fees for services such as issuing passports, residency papers, work permits, and driving licenses have been bumped up. Additional charges on mobile phone users include an EGP 10 fee to be tacked onto monthly bills, according to AMAY. New mobile phone lines will set you back a total EGP 70 once the hike comes into effect at the start of FY2018-19, according to Al Mal.

Meanwhile, the House Budget Committee approved proposed amendments to the real estate tax that would tax the sale of inherited property, which the newspaper says had previously been untaxed. The changes, which were proposed by Rep. Mervat Alexan, would still need Cabinet approval to move forward. Some House reps. suggested that the sale of inherited property by the poor be tax exempt.

The Budget Committee also decided to postpone its final vote on a draft law that would exempt cleaning supplies from VAT, Al Shorouk reports.

House signs off on income tax cuts, raising minimum threshold for exemptions: The House of Representatives’ general assembly signed off yesterday on new income tax cuts, Al Masry Al Youm reports. Those earning up to EGP 8k a year will be exempt entirely from taxes, while others earning between EGP 8k-30k will receive breaks ranging from 7.5%-85%, as follows:

• Salary amounts between EGP 8k-30k a year, taxed at 10%, will receive an 85% break;
• Salary amounts between EGP 30k-45k a year, taxed at 15%, will receive a 45% break;
• Salary amounts between EGP 45k-200k a year, taxed at 20%, will receive a 7.5% break;
• Salary amounts higher than EGP 200k a year will be taxed at 22.5% and receive no breaks.

The new rates go into effect one month after they are published in the Official Gazette, came one day after the House signed off on a number of measures meant to shore up the social safety net ahead of an expected rise in fuel and energy prices at the start of the new fiscal year in July. Those included special “hardship” raises and pension increases for state bureaucrats as well as members of the military and police force. The move is set cost state coffers around EGP 60 bn, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail has said.

Business conditions in the non-oil private sector declined during May, according to the Emirates NBD PMI reading (pdf) compiled by Markit. The gauge slipped back to 49.2 in May from 50.1 in April. Last month’s reading had shown business conditions stabilizing with new export orders rising for the fourth month.

A “marginal” decline in new orders and output formed the basis for the contraction, “with panel members citing weaker demand. … Reductions in both output and new business were only marginal, however, and slower than their respective averages,” notes the report.

On a positive note, non-oil private sector business purchasing expanded for the eighth consecutive month during May. “Panel members largely attributed the increase to planned business expansions. Moreover, the rate at which buying levels rose accelerated from April to a four-month high.”

LEGISLATION WATCH- Parliament’s general assembly gave its final approval yesterday to the Cyber Crimes Act, Al Mal reports. The law requires prosecutors to obtain a court order to ban websites that publish any content deemed criminal or posing a threat to the country’s national and economic security. If the threat is deemed imminent, the prosecution is granted the authority to issue a temporary ban via the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) until a court order is obtained. Under the law, internet service providers will be required to hold user data and records of web activity — including voice calls and browsing history, among others — for a period of 180 days. ISPs will be required to hand over the information to the authorities if requested.

Crime and punishment: The bill, when it comes into effect, will give the prosecutor general the authority to impose travel bans of as long as one year on anyone found guilty of a crime under the act. It also lays out fines and jail terms for a range of offenses

Parliament also approved yesterday the law establishing the Supreme Authority for Upper Egypt Development, Ahram Gate reports. The law mandates the authority with drafting a holistic strategy for the economic, social, and urban development of regional areas.

Law on expat affairs up for discussion: Meanwhile, Parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee says it will meet on 1 July to discuss legislation that would govern the affairs of Egyptians expats, Al Mal also says.

Someday, somehow, EGX trades could be subject to the capital gains tax: The Tax Authority is mulling the formation of a committee to look into how it could impost the long-deferred capital gains tax on stock market transactions, a government source tells Enterprise. The source noted that there is no rush afoot to implement the measure soon, adding that any such move would be a “political decision” (government-speak for Ittihadiya or the Prime Minister).

No change is imminent: The levy is on hold until 2020, having been delayed after protests by retail investors.

Background: The previous government backtracked in 2015 on plans to impose a tax on stock market gains after protests from retail investors, but threw business owners under the bus, leaving in place a tax in dividends.

The capital gains tax might have a receptive audience from financial markets after all: The Egyptian Capital Markets Association (ECMA) may be receptive to scrapping the current stamp tax on EGX trades and instead implementing the capital gains tax, Youm7 reports. Representatives of the lobby group plan to meet with the Finance Ministry to push for the proposal, said ECMA head Mohamed Maher. He said that they will push for a new framework for the capital gains tax that addresses the issues which made the initial implementation of tax “unbearable” to investors. Other members of the group wants to repeal the stamp tax, saying that by the time it reaches 0.175% it would be too high and could have a negative impact on daily trading volumes.

The stamp tax on stock market transactions earned the government a total of EGP 3.2 bn in its first year, widely exceeding expectations, a source in government tells us. Misr For Central Clearing, Depository & Registry Managing Director Tarek Abdel Bary told us earlier this week that the 0.125% tax on the main market had brought in EGP 700 mn, which leaves the wider OTC covering the remainder. The tax generated exceeded the government’s projection of EGP 2.1 bn in its first year. The tax was raised to 0.15% earlier this week and will rise to 0.175% next year.

REGULATION WATCH- Factory owners get a small break with amendments to regulations under the Industrial Registry Act: Trade and Industry Minister Tarek Kabil issued amendments yesterday to the executive regulations for the Industrial Registry Act, bringing them up to speed with the Industrial Permits Act, according to a ministry statement. The amendments make it mandatory for factory owners to sign their businesses on to the industrial registry within 30 days of the start of operations. It, however, relieves them from having to provide social security documents with their applications, requiring them to present only their industrial permits and commercial registration documents. They also scrap the temporary industrial registry, allowing temporary registration only on an exceptional case-by-case basis. The Industrial Permits Act, which came into effect last year, expedites industrial licensing proceedings for manufacturers, who now deal with one government agency only as opposed to 11 before, shortening the wait time for permits to 30 days.

Lebanon’s EuroMena taps Lazard to advise on exit from two Egyptian businesses: Lebanon’s EuroMena Funds has tapped global advisory firm Lazard for counsel on the exit of its EuroMena I Fund from two of its Egyptian holdings, EuroMena Investment Director Aly Mahmoudy tells Al Mal. The private equity firm is hoping to sell the Fund’s 80% stake in Egyptian software developer ITWORX and c. 10% stake in food producer Wadi Holdings by the final quarter of 2018, he said.

The company is also studying two new investments in Egypt through its EuroMena III Fund. Mahmoudy said that both investments, each hovering around USD 10-20 mn, are in the commercial retail sector. The firm had announced in 2016 that it was planning to invest around USD 350 mn in Egypt over four years through EuroMena III. This comes after media reports last year that EuroMena was also looking to exit printing and packaging company Wataniya and shift its focus to Lebanon and Africa-based companies with ties to the Lebanese diaspora.

EXCLUSIVE- Heliopolis Housing & Development in the market for a EGP 1 bn loan: Heliopolis Housing & Development (HDD), a candidate for the state IPO program, is in talks with a local bank for a EGP 1 bn facility to fund its New Heliopolis project, a company official told Enterprise. The talks are in “later stages” and the company hopes to receive the loan sometime in 2H2018. The timing of the loan was deliberate as the firm sees monetary easing and lower interest rates afoot. We noted yesterday that Madinet Nasr Housing and Development (MNHD) is also seeking a EGP 1 bn loan.

No update from Heliopolis on its sale of additional shares on the EGX. Details, including size and timing of the sale is in the hands of the Holding Company for Construction and Development and Public Enterprises Ministry, the company official said. Ministry officials had said back in April that HDD is considering the sale of another 30% of its shares under the government’s program to divest assets through share sales on the EGX.

Government decides to import rice, suggesting further cuts in local cultivation are coming: The government decided yesterday to import “the necessary quantities” of rice to increase its availability and “control the market,” according to a Cabinet statement. The imported rice will be required to meet the same quality standards as Egyptian rice. No details were provided on how much rice will be imported. The move suggests that Egypt will “begin an import programme since sharply reducing its own production of rice,” of which we typically have a surplus, Reuters notes. The government has clamped down on the cultivation of water-intensive crops, including rice, through recently-passed amendments to the Agriculture Act.

MOVES- The Mansour-Scope alliance appointed Khaled Youssef as the CEO of Peugeot Egypt, Daily News Egypt reports. Youssef, who will take up the new position as of 1 July, joins Peugeot Egypt from the Egyptian International Motors Company, the distributor of Kia and Renault in Egypt.

UK’s Savills acquires Cluttons, Egypt on the map for regional expansion plans: UK real estate advisory firm Savills announced yesterday that it acquired Middle East-based consultants Cluttons late last month, Gulf Business reports. Savills intends to retain all Cluttons staff members as it rebrands the company later this year as Savills Middle East, its first wholly-owned subsidiary in the region. Cluttons CEO Steve Morgan discussed the move in an interview with Bloomberg yesterday (watch, runtime: 3:39).

Egypt will definitely be a point of focus for the firm, says Morgan, who notes that the country is “back on the map for many of the corporate occupiers.” He adds that while markets in the region are still maturing, which can be challenging, choosing the right partners and right projects is key to success, especially as governments implement necessary reforms to attract investors.

Sawt Al Arab radio show host dies at 93: The signature voice of Nasser-era radio channel ‘Sawt Al Arab’ (The Voice of Arabs), Ahmed Said, passed away on Monday at the age of 93. Said is famous for having reported an Egyptian ‘victory’ during the 1967 war, telling “listeners that Egypt had shot down dozens of Israeli warplanes. In reality, Israel had destroyed nearly all of Egypt’s air force on the tarmac,” the Associated Press notes.

The UN’s human rights office expressing concerns over Egypt’s arrest of bloggers and activists is leading the conversation on Egypt in the foreign press this morning. A spokeswoman for the office said that Egypt is escalating its crackdown on freedoms and described the arrests as a “chronic problem,” the Associated Press says. The Sisi administration has repeatedly come under fire from human rights defenders for clamping down on dissent, Newsweek notes. The international community, however, has been “largely silent,” former detainee Aya Hijazi says in an opinion piece for the Washington Post.

As the date for the World Cup, Mohamed Salah coverage reaches a fever pitch. The Bleacher Report is profiling the football star in a lengthy feature and interview on everything from the World Cup to his rise to stardom and even his thoughts on the Sergio Ramos tackle. This is a must read for all big time Mo Salah fans. Sky Sports is continuing to run updates on the player’s health.

Sergio Ramos shows the world that he strangled his good twin in the womb: In a reminder that some people’s capacity for shamelessness runs as deep as a bottomless well, Real Madrid captain and renowned cheat Sergio Ramos is blaming Mo Salah for the injury, accusing him of grabbing him by the arm. Ramos also claimed Salah could have played on in the match “if he got an injection for the second half,” according to BBC Sports.

Egypt should offer Ethiopia the know-how and infrastructure for the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Ali Abdel Aziz writes for El Watan. He suggests that sharing its experience with the High Dam and and offer to supply the high-capacity transmission network Ethiopia will need to distribute the energy produced by the dam would put Cairo back in the driver’s seat on GERD. Abdel Aziz argues that the “if you can’t beat them, join them” approach could give Egypt leverage to control the rate at which Ethiopia fills the dam’s reservoir, which is the main point of concern for Egypt.

Could a legally-enforced shaming be the key for companies to close the gender pay gap? The UK has recently begun to legally require companies of a certain size to file “pay disclosures” that make public the disparity between what they pay their men and women employees. The “nationwide experiment for pay equality” showed that some companies sport as much as a 60% difference in median pay for men and women, according to Bloomberg.

Tom Cruise is attempting his most impossible stunt yet, this time up above the desertscapes of Abu Dhabi. For the latest installment of his Mission Impossible franchise, Fallout, the 55-year-old Hollywood actor is performing what is known as a high-altitude, low opening (or HALO) jump from a plane moving at a speed of approximately 265 km per hour and hovering around 20,000 feet above the earth. The stunt — the risks from which include hypoxia and the bends — is something that no other actor has ever attempted before and took Cruise over a year of practice to nail, according to the Independent.

Not challenging enough for you? “We have to shoot as close to sunset as we can, so we only get three minutes every day to get the shot,” one member of the film crew said (watch, runtime 2:37).

The Electricity Ministry is planning to announce the results of the tender for the 6 GW Hamrawein “clean coal” power plant on 13 June, once it completes its review of the offers, a ministry source tells Amwal Al Ghad. This comes after the three bidding consortia contacted the ministry about the delay in announcing the results, which were initially scheduled for late April and then delayed to late May. The government began studying the offers last month. The lowest offer of USD 4.4 bn reportedly came from a Shanghai Electric-Dong Fang-Hassan Allam consortium, while GE offered to build the project for USD 5.2 bn, and an Orascom Construction-Elsewedy Electric-Mitsubishi Hitachi consortium offered USD 6.19 bn.

Egypt is one of the ten countries in the world with the largest remaining ultra-deepwater natural gas reserves, with around 18,852 bcf ready to be economically recovered, according to GlobalData Energy. Along with Mozambique, Israel, Tanzania, and Brazil, Egypt will drive ultra-deepwater gas production to increase more than threefold over the next eight years to reach 15,985 bcf/d in 2025.

The Tourism Development Authority (TDA) will reportedly resume land tenders in August after a hiatus of over one-year, TDA boss Serag Saad El Din tells Al Mal. The TDA had been waiting for the government to release its land development map for the year before auctioning land off to investor for touristic development, he said. Tourism Minister Rania Al Mashat had announced in April that Egypt would be launching an ambitious tender program offering international investors the opportunity to develop sustainable cities in previously untapped locations along the Red Sea and Mediterranean coasts. Sustainable cities, like the New Alamein City that’s currently under development, are expected to help drive tourist traffic by adding to the number of places to visit in Egypt.

Saudi Arabian low-cost carrier Flyadeal is planning to add around 8-10 planes to its fleet per year to fly to new destinations including Egypt, Dubai, and Turkey, according to Gulf News. The carrier is currently negotiating offers with Airbus and Boeing to purchase 50 new aircrafts and will make a decision by September.

Construction work began on the third and final phase of new Akhenaten Museum on east bank of the Nile in Minya, project supervisor Ahmed Hemeda tells Al Masry Al Youm. Once completed, the project will be the third largest in Egypt after the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) and the Fustat Museum.

SICO Technology exported the first batch of its Android-powered Nile X Egyptian-made smartphones to the UAE, Chairman Mohamed Salem tells Al Mal. The company, which received approvals from the UAE’s telecoms regulator on the first shipment of 1,000 devices last month, plans to “continue expanding abroad and exporting to Arab and African countries,” Salem adds. Nile X, was introduced during Cairo ICT last year and went on sale in Egypt back in February with six models ranging in price from EGP 999-4,200.

The Arab Organization for Industry’s (AOI) railways factory SEMAF is planning to complete Egypt’s first locally-manufactured double-decker train by the end of 2018, factory director Abdel Rahman Hussein tells Al Watan. The factory is now working to secure all the materials needed to produce prototypes after the National Railway Authority (NRA) approved the designs for the new trains, which aim to increase railway capacity by 40-60%. The new trains are part of the government’s plans to overhaul the railway sector, which is expected to see ticket prices rise at the start of the new fiscal year in July.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is “finalizing” a new loan agreement with the Transport Ministry to finance the purchase of six new locomotives for Cairo Metro Line 2, EBRD Managing Director for the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Janet Heckman says. Heckman did not disclose the size of the funding package. The ministry had been expected to sign last month a EUR 600 mn loan agreement with the EBRD, the European Investment Bank, and the French Development Agency to finance the infrastructure of Cairo Metro Line 1. The EBRD plans to invest EUR 1.5 bn in Egypt this year, Heckman had previously said.

Work on the EUR 360 mn Alexandria tram project will begin early next year and is expected to take three years to complete, according to a Cabinet statement. The overhauled tram is expected to serve 250k-300k commuters per day once it is operational in 2022.

Modern Motors won exclusive distribution rights for Nissan’s new Infiniti model after participating in a tender with a number of other local bidders, CMO Hazem Salah tells Al Mal. The company is currently working on creating an independent body to market the new model, he adds.

If you’re looking for one of the best scuba diving experiences on the planet, Egypt is the place for you, according to Dive Magazine, which put together a host of images and videos from the country’s top 10 dive spots (watch, runtime: 03:17).