Will the EGP break 17 against the greenback?

Will the EGP break the psychologically important 17.00 barrier this week? The EGP continued to appreciate against the USD last week, reaching 17.0983 on Thursday from 17.1778 on Sunday, according to central bank data. The CBE’s buying price, meanwhile, slipped below EGP 17 on Wednesday. Analysts have suggested the EGP has strengthened this year on the back of higher foreign inflows in government debt.

Watch this space: Banking Act. The proposed overhaul of the Banking and Central Bank Act is due to be introduced in the House of Representatives by the end of this month, according to state-owned news agency MENA in a piece picked up by Ahram Online. The story is short on detail, but a couple of provisions are worth keeping an eye on:

• The act will set rules on fair competition and “monopoly prevention”;
• It will also “regulate the trade of digital currencies,” suggesting the CBE may be ready to deal with cryptocurrency.

A handful of other things to pencil into your diaries:

• UK trade secretary visit: British International Trade Secretary Liam Fox will be in Cairo on 27-28 May to talk trade and investment, according to a Foreign Ministry statement.
• SWF boss: We could finally find out who will be helming our sovereign wealth fund by the end of June. (Al Shorouk)
• Saudi is calling for a Gulf security summit on 30 May in Mecca, gathering Gulf and Arab heads of state after last week’s attacks against KSA and UAE oil infrastructure. Saudi and the UAE were both out with statements overnight: Saudi says that while it doesn’t want war with Iran, it will react with “all strength and determination” to aggression. The UAE welcomed the Saudi summit.

Emerging markets had a week to forget: EM bonds, equities and currencies had a terrible week last week as the effects of the US-China trade war continue to be felt around the world. We have more on this in this morning’s Macro Picture, below.

One front in The Donald’s global trade war is quieting down after the US reached an agreement on metal tariffs with Canada and Mexico, paving the way for the passage of a new North American trade pact. The Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal and Reuters have more on what is one of this morning’s top global business stories.

Amid market uncertainty and the rise of the robots, top financial advisors are looking to the long term: Industry professionals featured in the latest Financial Times 400 Top Financial Advisers list are shifting their focus to long-term financial planning:

• 78% are changing the way they allocate client assets, making use of computer-aided models to build investment portfolios based on a client’s goals and appetite for risk;
• Many increasingly see their long-term financial planning skills — such as estate planning and risk management — as more important than their ability to identify stocks or funds.

You can read the full FT 400 list here.

It’s Amazon vs Uber in the battle for Europe’s food delivery industry: Amazon has become one of UK-based food delivery startup Deliveroo’s largest investors, leading a USD 575 mn investment in the company’s Series G funding round, Bloomberg reports. Deliveroo has already raised USD 1.53 bn and will use the latest capital injection to further expand its team and network. Amazon’s decision to invest will put it in direct competition with Uber’s food delivery arm UberEats. T Rowe Price, Fidelity Management and Greenoaks will join Amazon, Deliveroo said in a statement.

The news could come at a better time for Uber, which is still reeling from its “train wreck” IPO last week. Its share price closed down another 2.53% on Friday, capping a torrid first week of trading for the ride-hailing company.

But the underwriters are laughing all the way to the bank: Vanity Fair explains how chief underwriter Morgan Stanley came out on top as Uber’s share price flopped.

What We’re Tracking Today, the Ramadan edition:

A pre-iftar reading list to kill time between your post-workout shower and the breaking of the fast:

Don’t make important decisions after 3pm. Decision fatigue and the “3 o’clock fade” are very real. Consider this a must-read whether you’re the CEO or just starting to build your business / build your own practice / climb the corporate ladder.

Want to know where the market is heading? Look at copper. The metal has been “the single-best leading indicator for stocks over the past 18 months,” according to a research report cited by Business Insider, and Capital Economics suggests it’s over-valued to the tune of about 7%.

Adidas, Gap, Kraft Heinz and Coca Cola are among the western companies “caught in China’s Muslim clampdown,” the Wall Street Journal writes. The companies have “become entangled in China’s campaign to forcibly assimilate its Muslim population” thanks to “long, often opaque supply chains that travel through China’s northwest region of Xinjiang,” where “residents are routinely forced into training programs that feed workers to area factories.”

Is your kid / younger sibling / niece applying to college in the fall? Go learn about the SAT’s plan to give every applicant a secret “adversity score” that only colleges will see. It’s designed to give a leg up to those who have faced discrimination and adversity in life — and it has been universally panned so far. See more in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times (fact, fact and opinion).

Telling jokes while Muslim: Egypt-born comedian Ahmed Ahmed (website) told a joke in Florida. Then the cops showed up, because an audience member left his / her funny bone at home. The offending bit, per the New York Times: “Clap if you’re from the Middle East. All right. We got a handful of us in here, nice. But, hey, it only takes one of us … to tell the joke.” Ahmed recorded his interaction with the cops and posted the video on Twitter, writing, “An audience member called 9-11 on me because ‘they feared for their lives’ over a joke I told on stage. That’s never happened to me or any comedian I believe. [Redacted] crazy man. The cops were even like ‘WTF’?”

The last episode of Game of Thrones airs tonight. We haven’t hated season eight nearly as have the dwellers of the interwebs (NYT | WSJ) and we’ll be sad (but also maybe a little relieved?) to see it go. HBO, meanwhile, is plotting what’s next — including a movie version of Deadwood and His Dark Materials, based on Philip Pullman’s excellent novels (watch the trailer, runtime: 1:03). Bloomberg has more on that front. Also wrapping up, this one after 12 seasons: The under-rated (in Egypt) Big Bang Theory.

RAMADAN PSA- Bank hours are at 9am-2pm for employees; doors are open from 9:30am until 1:30pm for customers. The trading day at the EGX runs 10:00am until 1:30pm.

So, when do we eat? Maghrib is at 6:44pm CLT today in Cairo. You’ll have until 3:19am tomorrow morning to caffeinate / finish your sohour.

WEATHER- Look for a high today of 34°C, but be warned: This week is going to be hot. We’re looking at daytime highs of 40-44°C from Tuesday through Friday.

SURVEY- CBE to leave key interest rates on hold this Thursday: The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) will likely leave key interest rates on hold when its Monetary Policy Committee meets this Thursday, according to all 12 economists polled by Enterprise. Respondents cited the likely impact on inflation of upcoming cuts to subsidies for fuel and electricity. “We think the CBE will refrain from taking any action now that we’re getting closer to the liberalization of fuel prices this summer,” EFG Hermes’ Mohamed Abu Basha said. The CBE cut its overnight deposit and lending rates by 100 bps in February to 15.75% and 16.75%, but left them on hold at its last meeting in March.

Indicators are good: “April's inflation was good, but not to the extent of a cut ahead of the next round of subsidy cuts. Unemployment continues to drop and GDP growth is holding up well, so I don't think the CBE will view monetary action as needed. The only thing in favor of a cut is the stronger EGP,” Renaissance Capital Head of MENA Research Ahmed Hafez said. Annual headline inflation fell to 13% in April from 14.2% in March, potentially as a result of discounted food items the government released in the market ahead of Ramadan. Unemployment fell to 8.1% in 1Q2019, down from 8.9% in 4Q2018, the state statistics agency said earlier this month.

Look for inflation to rise in May and June on the back of Ramadan spending and planned subsidy cuts, analysts said. “We expect monthly inflation to rise in May as a result of higher consumer demand during Ramadan. Moreover, we estimate fuel prices to rise 15%-25% in June-July, compared to average fuel price increases of 31%-42% for octane and diesel in FY2017-2018, resulting in higher monthly inflation in June and July,” HC’s Sara Saada said.

So, when will the central bank go back to rate cuts? Look for easing to resume toward the end of this year, economists predicted. “I still expect the CBE will resume easing in Q4,” said CI Capital’s Hany Farahat.

Could we see a cut this week anyway? Only if you squint the right way: “There is room,” said Beltone’s Alia Mamdouh. “But the most likely scenario remains a 100 bps cut in rates by the end of the year, accounting for the expected inflationary repercussions of the wider implementation of the fuel indexation mechanism.”

Are EM central banks departing from monetary orthodoxy to keep inflation in check? Emerging market central banks are indirectly intervening in currency markets to contain inflation, General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Agustín Carstens said in a speech earlier this month at the London School of Economics. The “landmark speech” suggests a significant departure from the orthodoxy of monetary economics — and that we are in a new age in which central banks use FX rates to help control inflation without resorting to raising interest rates, too much, Andrés Velasco writes for Project Syndicate. “Emerging economies’ financial conditions tighten when their currencies depreciate, and vice versa. It was not supposed to happen that way. Letting their currencies float was supposed to allow countries to seize control of their domestic interest rates, which could then be adjusted as necessary to smooth domestic economic fluctuations. Alas, reality has turned out to be considerably more vexing.”

So … where’s the problem? As Velasco explains, many emerging market central banks turn to a tightening monetary policy after a currency depreciation “to contain so-called second-round effects (whereby the weaker exchange rate contaminates expectations and wage-setting behavior). The problem is that when investors panic and the exchange rate becomes unhinged, there may be no interest rate sufficiently high to calm things down. Even worse, a sky-high interest rate that sinks the economy and causes the central-bank short-term debt to pile up may reduce credibility, rather than enhancing it.”

This shift in policy could also explain why volatility in some Asian currencies (and the EGP) is limited: Some EMs routinely engage in “sterilized exchange-market intervention,” whereby the central bank intervenes during an upswing in the FX rate, allowing it to shore up reserves, and then again during a downswing caused by capital outflows. The latter intervention “via the sales of reserves can be stabilizing, because it supplies the USD liquidity the local economy desperately needs.”

The possibility of central bank intervention propping up the EGP has been suggested before. Pundits including Capital Economics and news outlets including Reuters have all suggested that the CBE is using the banking system to indirectly intervene and keep the EGP stable. EFG Hermes’ Mohamed Abu Basha had said last month that investors may be scared off if the EGP strengthens too much, since they might see the currency as too risky and begin selling off their holdings in Egyptian debt.

Egypt, IMF reach staff-level agreement to unlock final tranche of USD 12 bn facility: Egypt has reached a staff-level agreement with the IMF over the disbursement of the sixth and final USD 2 bn tranche of its USD 12 bn extended fund facility, according to a statement issued by the fund. The agreement, reached after the IMF team’s fifth review of Egypt’s economic reform program over the past two weeks, will now go to the fund’s executive board for approval.

Egypt is on course to hit its target of 5.5% GDP growth and its primary surplus goal of 2% of GDP. “The authorities’ efforts have been successful in achieving macroeconomic stabilization, a recovery in growth, and an improvement in the business climate,” Egypt mission chief Subir Lall said. The government has indicated that it will continue to push ahead with further reform after it concludes in November. “Staff welcomes the authorities’ strong commitment to maintain the reform momentum beyond the program… we look forward to our continued close cooperation and policy dialogue,” Lall said.

EXCLUSIVE- FinMin, Trade Ministry looking to expand automotive industry-style incentive strategy to other sectors: The finance, trade and industry ministers are working on a more expansive incentives strategy for all local industries based on its program for the automotive industry, a senior official in the government tells Enterprise. The program would, if it comes to fruition, grant customs breaks and tax incentives to manufacturers based on the percentage of domestic content used in the products they manufacture. Specific incentives would vary by industry, the official said.

What incentives can we expect to see? The committee drafting the strategy have only decided thus far on incentives for electronics companies that apply for a license to begin manufacturing televisions (which are currently only assembled locally). These manufacturers will get a 40-60% tax break and will also be eligible for discounts on their customs bill of 5, 10, 40, or 60%.

The incentives are expected to cost the government some EGP 10 bn in customs revenues, but our source tells us the government sees the overall economic benefits far outweighing that price tag. The Finance Ministry had projected its customs revenues in FY2019-2020 to come in at EGP 51.7 bn, from EGP 45.3 bn during the current fiscal year.

The incentives will require amendments to the Customs Act and will introduce two different customs rates for products that are fully assembled and those that will be used for domestic manufacturing. The program could also include customs incentives for components of new manufacturing lines.

The draft strategy will likely be ready by mid-June, at which point it will be sent to Cabinet for review and approval. If the strategy can be enacted through changes to the act’s executive regulations, it could come into effect this summer. Otherwise, it heads to the House of Representatives for debate this fall.

Background: The government had been looking to finalize its (not-the-automotive-directive) incentive program to encourage automotive manufacturing in Egypt, a senior government official told us earlier this month. The program will grant customs discounts for auto manufacturers based on the percentage of domestic content in the vehicles they produce, ranging from 10% for assemblers to 110% for auto players that begin manufacturing cars locally.

REGULATION WATCH- Would-be shorts, rejoice: The EGX has issued criteria for selecting securities eligible for short selling, it said in a press release (pdf). You can short a total of 29 securities, as well as ETFs, the EGX said. The list of eligible securities will be reviewed every six months. Eligible shares will need to meet a threshold qualifying them as frequently traded, and at least 10% of registered brokerage firms need to be trading the share in question. The freefloating shares must have a turnover rate of 20%.

There’s an anti-bullying provision: Shorts won’t be able to pick on the little guy: You can’t short a stock unless its shares in freefloat account for a minimum of 0.005% of the market’s total freefloating shares, and any stock that’s going to be shorted has to have at least 300 mn issued shares.

Background: The Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) earlier this year issued regulations for short selling on the EGX, allowing brokerage firms to act as market makers by finding lenders and borrowers of stocks. Under the regulations, you can only short 25% of a company’s freefloat shares while any one shareholder won’t be able to lend more than 5% of a company’s shares. The regulations will also cap the total percentage of any company’s shares that can be used to create a short position. Folks looking to open a short position will need to put down 50% of the value of the securities borrowed, and brokerages will be required to park 20% in fixed-income instruments while the position is open.

STARTUP WATCH- Fintech startup XPay has raised USD 250k from two unnamed angel investors shortly after raising a still-not-disclosed sum from EFG EV Fintech, WeeTracker reports. XPay was founded last year and focuses on e-payments for sectors including education. It claims to have 18k users and is going to use the funding for growth as it looks to hit 200k users before year’s end.

EARNINGS WATCH- Qalaa Holdings has reported a net profit of EGP 1.35 bn in 2018, compared to a loss of EGP 4.71 bn in 2017, according to the company’s earnings release (pdf). Revenues jumped 25% y-o-y to EGP 13.17 bn during the year, up from EGP 10.55 bn in 2017, and “driven by strong performance across all subsidiaries especially TAQA Arabia and Al-Takamol cement.” Annual profits were supported by Qalaa’s deconsolidation of operational liabilities from its Africa Railways investments, resulting in a EGP 3.7 bn “non-cash one-off gain.”

Looking ahead: Qalaa pressing ahead with a restructuring strategy to deliver operational profitability to its shareholders “with the imminent start of production” at its Egyptian Refining Company (ERC). ERC has already begun trial operations earlier this year and had supplied the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation with around 160k tonnes of refined crude as of May. “[We] are actively seeking a larger ownership stake in this flagship project,” Heikal said. “We are also actively working to finalize exits from our cement portfolio that will further strengthen our financial position and serve as a net positive on our bottom line,” co-founder and managing director Hisham El Khazindar said.

“The trade war has sunk emerging markets. There's more to come.” —Welcome to the new narrative on EM. May has been a bad month for EM bonds, equities and currencies — and it could get worse as stalled US-China trade talks prolong uncertainty in the market.

Off the proverbial cliff? EM equities and bonds seemed as recently as April to be on track, but the MSCI EM equities index plummeted 3.7% last week, erasing most of its year-to-date gains, according to Bloomberg. The MSCI EM currency index fell nearly 1% last week, its fifth consecutive week of decline, the Financial Times writes. EM bond funds saw their largest outflows since June 2018 in the week leading up to 15 May, with active funds seeing outflows for the first time since February. Meanwhile, overall inflows into EM bond and equity funds declined by around USD 5 bn, according to Barclays. May has for the past decade been bad for EM outflows, but May 2019 is on track to be the worst since 2012 for stocks and since 2016 for currencies.

It ain’t over yet: EM are vulnerable to global market volatility, with equities left “hanging in the balance of the global risk environment,” say Goldman Sachs strategists Caesar Maasry and Ron Gray. Even leaving aside trade tensions, analysts have highlighted the recent failure of EM currencies to perform and the lack of aggregate growth. And Brendan McKenna, currency strategist at Wells Fargo, says we haven’t seen the end of it yet. “There is more volatility to come. There aren’t a whole lot of things that can support EM right now.”

Human rights is leading the conversation on Egypt in the foreign press again. Last week’s detention of labor rights lawyer Haytham Mohamdeen and former political activist Mostafa Maher have sparked fears of a renewed wave of arrests targeting “peaceful dissent or individuals with a history of activism,” Amnesty International said in a statement. The statement came as President Abdel Fattah El Sisi pardoned 560 prisoners, many of whom were said to have supported the Ikhwan, Reuters reports.

Other stories making the foreign press this morning:

• Media freedoms: The government has been cracking down on foreign broadcasters working in the country, according to Al Monitor.
• Egypt has deported 33 Sudanese people who were arrested earlier this month while heading for Libya to then move onward to Europe, The Washington Post reports.
• Architects speak out: A group of architects are voicing concerns about the “alien style” of new urban developments in Cairo, Al Monitor reports.

Egypt and Saudi’s close ties are the theme of the morning in state-owned newspapers, with an invitation from Saudi Arabia’s King Salman to President Abdel Fattah El Sisi to attend an Organization of Islamic Cooperation summit topping the front pages of Al Ahram, Al Gomhuria, and Al Akhbar. In a meeting with Saudi Ambassador to Egypt Osama Bin Ahmed, El Sisi reaffirmed Egypt’s solidarity with the kingdom against any efforts to shake its stability.

Asset managers have declared plastic waste a key business risk: Asset managers are beginning to ask companies to disclose their production of plastic waste in a bid to reduce environmental damage, the FT reports. Funds including Schroders, BMO Global and Hermes are collecting data from companies about their use of plastics and are encouraging them to reduce waste. BMO last year asked 27 companies to tackle their waste problems by using more recyclable materials and clamp down on single-use plastic. Schroders, noticing a lack of data, sent out surveys to 100 companies requesting information about their plastic usage. “Virtually no one was talking about the risks of plastic waste just a few years ago but that is changing very rapidly now,” Sam Block, ESG researcher at MSCI, told the FT.

Businesses unprepared for the coming regulation: Last year China ended its role as the world’s chief recycler by banning the import of foreign plastics. Now, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam — countries which are now receiving more of the plastic previously destined for China — are introducing import bans of their own. This is leading to concerns that businesses will not be able to deal with the coming wave of regulations governing plastic usage and disposal. “Governments are acting really quickly on regulation and companies in general are unprepared,” lawyer and author of a report on the business risks of plastic waste Tatiana Lujan said. Alice Evans, co-head of responsible investments at BMO, agrees: “Plastic waste is a business risk that companies know they will have to address rapidly. We want to see commitments where they don’t exist already, but now implementation is key,” she told the FT.

Big Brother wants to see your face: Last week, San Francisco became the first American city to ban facial recognition technology used by law enforcement, according to Bloomberg (watch, runtime: 3:38). The move was prompted by civil liberty concerns and fears that this tech could enable a sort of “totalitarian state.” The tech has been used by the police recently to successfully arrest criminals and rescue missing children. But with CCTV and facial recognition being incorporated into the Chinese surveillance state, tech developers such as Microsoft and Amazon, alongside civil liberties advocates don’t feel comfortable with the technology until it becomes regulated.

President Sisi ratifies EUR 102.5 mn loan agreement with Germany: President Abdel Fattah El Sisi on Thursday ratified an agreement with Germany allowing Egypt to receive EUR 102.5 mn worth of loans, Al Shorouk reports, citing the Official Gazette. Under the terms of the agreement, Germany will lend the money to either the government or an agreed-upon third-party, provided the money is used for electricity, water and irrigation projects. The bulk of the loan will have a 30-year tenure, a 10-year grace period and an annual interest of 2%. However a EUR 2.5 mn tranche will have a 40-year tenure, a 10-year grace period and an annual interest of 0.75%.

Egypt is now generating 6 GW of electricity from renewables each year, with 2 GW coming from solar and wind power, executive chairman of the New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA) Mohamed El Khayat said, according to Egypt Today. Egypt appears to be on course to meet its target to produce 20% of its energy consumption needs from renewable sources by 2020, with both the construction of new solar plants in Benban and a wind plant in the Gulf of Suez due to be finalized this year.

General Electric and petroleum contractor Enppi were awarded a contract to construct a USD 25 mn electricity transmission station in Assiut that will feed electricity to Assiut Oil Refining Company’s new refinery, Al Masry Al Youm reported. The project is expected to be completed within 12 months.

The Arab Organization for Industrialization is looking into potentially cooperating with Spain’s Colway on manufacturing railway carriages’ internal equipment, Middle East News Agency reported.

Heliopolis Housing and Development (HHD) is planning to auction another land plot in Heliopolis as part of its plans to sell off a total of 190 feddans to finance debt repayment and investment, HHD’s Sahar Al Damati said, according to the local press. The company is also selling 32 plots in Sheraton through direct order agreements, and offloaded a separate 1,980-feddan piece of land last week for EGP 99.3 mn. HHD is among the lineup of state-owned companies planning to sell additional stakes on the EGX as part of the state privatization program.

EgyptAir will receive a third Boeing 787 Dreamliner next month as part of a USD 6 bn agreement signed in late 2017 to buy 45 new planes to upgrade its fleet, a source within the company told Ahram Online. The agreement, which involves buying six new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners, is believed to be the biggest ever made by the company. Egypt received the first two new Dreamliner aircraft in March and April of this year.

25 January uprising, the musical: The events of 2011 are getting a musical retelling in “We Live in Cairo,” a musical that is running until 23 June at the American Repertory Theater, the Harvard Gazette reports. The project, depicting the events of Egypt’s recent past, was initiated in 2013 and has been led by the Lazours, brothers of Lebanese descent who wrote the book, music and lyrics.