New 1% corona tax on all salaries from 1 July?
(See you back here on 31 May 2020 — we’re off next week for Eid El Fitr. Happy holidays, everyone.)

We’re very much ready to slide into the longest-ever Eid El Fitr holiday, with Planet Finance joining the rest of the private sector (and all government and public-sector employees) in taking off the entirety of next week. We hope you all enjoy some time off with your families, because really, none of us have been “working from home” the past few months — we’re all at home, in a crisis, trying to work (often as we care for or worry about families — including elderly parents and children who need homeschooling). So, enough.

We’re taking the week off, too. Enterprise will be back in your inbox at the appointed hour on Sunday, 31 May — properly caffeinated and ready for whatever is next.

The first day of Eid is set for Sunday — that’s when new measures to control the spread of the virus that causes covid-19 go into effect: Curfew will run 5pm-6am CLT and just about all stores except supermarkets, pharmacies and bakeries will be closed until Saturday. Curfew resets to 8pm-6am CLT on Saturday, 30 May, and most citizen-facing government services including passport and visa renewals are suspended for an additional 15 day after the end of Eid.

So, when do we eat? For the last time this Ramadan, we are pleased to advise you that Maghrib prayers are at 6:45pm and you’ll have until 3:17am to finish caffeinating / having the sohour of your choice.

THANK YOU ALL for having spent Ramadan with us. It’s an honour to write to each and every one of you each weekday morning.

COVID-19 IN EGYPT-

Egypt has now disclosed a total of 14,229 confirmed cases of covid-19 after the Health Ministry reported a record 745 new infections yesterday, just ahead of the 720 cases it reported on Wednesday. The ministry also said that another 21 people had died from the virus (compared to 14 the day before), taking the death toll to 680. We now have a total of 4,584 confirmed cases that have since tested negative for the virus after being hospitalized or isolated, of whom 3,994 have fully recovered.

Anyone with symptoms of covid-19 will be able to seek testing at non-specialist state-run hospitals starting today, Health Minister Hala Zayed said, according to a cabinet statement. That means testing should be available at some 320 facilities nationwide, marking a substantial expansion of testing capacity. The Health Ministry will be asking people with minor symptoms of covid-19 to self-isolate at home until the results are in, while those with more severe symptoms will be kept on site until test results are in, Zayed said.

The move came after the World Health Organization had earlier said that Egypt needed to expand its testing capacity, Reuters suggested yesterday, adding that the WHO didn’t specify the level of testing it recommends.

Cairo and Giza remain the country’s hotspots with the highest infection rates nationwide, cabinet said yesterday.

Irrigation Minister Mohamed Abdel Ati is quarantining at home for 14 days as a precaution after meeting with the Daqahliyah Governor Ayman Mokhtar shortly before the governor tested positive for covid-19 on Monday, he wrote on his Facebook page. Abdel Ati was tested for the virus on Tuesday, Al Shorouk reports, and is awaiting the results.

Fayoum University President Gaber Shadid has tested positive and is now in quarantine at the university’s hospital, Al Masry Al Youm reports.

COVID + BUSINESS IN EGYPT-

Officials have cleared another 26 hotels in South Sinai, the Red Sea, Alexandria, and Matrouh for reopening, bringing the total number of hotels that received the health certificates required to reopen to 44, Al Mal reports.

You’re set if you planned a Cairo staycation for Eid: Joining the 18 hotels already approved are the Marriott Mena House, the Cairo Marriott, the JW Marriott, the Conrad Cairo and the Renaissance Cairo Mirage City, according to a ministry statement.

Private airlines are calling for lower interest rates on USD-denominated loans to finance their operating expenses, says Yosry Abdel Wahab, the head of a new lobby group for the private airline industry that’s now forming. Private operators have been working together in recent weeks calling for a bailout package, including successive requests for lower airport fees, as the pandemic has brought tourism and commercial aviation to a halt.

Hotels and other tourist facilities are getting a break on their electricity bills, where they won’t have to make payments until October. The decision came following a meeting between the electricity and tourism ministers, Hapi Journal writes.

Advertising agencies have reportedly lost a combined EGP 200-250 mn in sales revenue between January and April, Al Shorouk reported, quoting Federation of Egyptian Industries member Ashraf Khairy. With advertising agencies locked into long-term contracts to rent billboards for outdoor ads (which they then on-sell to their clients for campaigns), Khairy is asking state agencies and companies to waive rents for the foreseeable future. Khairy had suggested earlier this month that the industry is being hit particularly hard covid-19, with outdoor ads having taken the biggest blow. As many as 250k direct jobs in the industry are now a risk, the story claims.

AmCham is out with a survey of Egyptian businesses to gauge the private sector’s experiences of the pandemic and how they view the government’s fiscal response. Of the 103 companies surveyed, half reported a moderate impact on their operations and 30% said the pandemic had severely impacted their business activity. All sectors expressed concern about how the virus’ impact on finances and operations, while tourism, hospitality and healthcare firms reported “severe workforce challenges” and manufacturing and transport companies cited supply chain and operational disruptions as a key issue. Tap or click here to read the full report (pdf).

DONATIONS-

USAID is providing the Egyptian Red Crescent (ERC) with a EGP 51 mn grant to support its covid-19 efforts, according to a press release.

Ibnsina Pharma is donating EGP 4 mn to Ahalena — a government initiative to support day workers — and another EGP 1 mn to the Immigration Ministry, according to a cabinet statement.

Johnson & Johnson has donated EGP 1 mn to the Egyptian Red Crescent, according to Al Shorouk.

Banque du Caire and Ahl Masr Foundation have inaugurated a covid-19 isolation facility with an inpatient capacity of 200 beds “with the aim of supporting state agencies and the health sector in Egypt,” reports Al Mal. BdC is also working with Misr El Kheir to provide food boxes for 50k families of day workers in Upper Egypt.

The Egyptian Food Bank has been providing meals to Egyptians under quarantine in university dorms in eight governorates since 9 May and will continue to do so until 5 June, according to Al Shorouk.

ON THE GLOBAL FRONT-

Yesterday saw the largest-yet single day tally of new cases globally, according to the World Health Organization, suggesting the pandemic still has a long way to go before it peaks even as some countries are easing lockdown restrictions.

And there may be bad news out of China, where doctors fear the virus is mutating: Chinese doctors studying new clusters that emerged in the country’s north say that patients are carrying the virus for longer periods of time and take longer to test negative, “suggesting that the pathogen may be changing in unknown ways and complicating efforts to stamp it out,” Bloomberg says.

IATA lays out blueprint for getting the aviation industry back on its feet: Governments and airlines must collaborate to provide passengers with self-service options to ensure safety and decongest traffic at airports, including collecting passenger health data ahead of travel and offering remote check-ins, automated bag drops and self-boarding, the International Air Transport Association recommends.

The Evil Empire is gearing up to reopen its offices in July at 25% capacity as Facebook said it will require its staff to wear masks in situations where social distancing can’t be maintained, Bloomberg reports. On a more responsible note, Matercard “will not ask employees to return to its worldwide corporate offices until they are comfortable that the sometimes fatal coronavirus is under control with vaccines or other measures,” Reuters writes.

GLOBAL MACRO-

The outlook is growing ever-more gloomy for corporate profits in Europe despite gradual reopening: Stoxx 600 companies are expected to report a 48.4% drop in 2Q2020 earnings (down from 46.7% forecast just a week ago), followed by a 35.3% drop in 3Q2020, Reuters reports, citing Refinitiv data. The downwards revisions for earnings forecasts signal that analysts aren’t penciling in a gradual economic recovery before 2021.

US Senate moves to ban Chinese listings: The US Senate voted through legislation yesterday that could ban Chinese companies from listing shares on US exchanges or seeking investment from US investors, CNBC reports.

Sign of the times- World Bank makes disaster management expert its new chief economist: The World Bank has appointed Carmen Reinhart, a professor at Harvard University who specializes in financial disasters, its new chief economist, the FT says.

The UK sold its first-ever negative-yield three-year bonds yesterday, “reflecting growing investor expectations that the Bank of England may need to take additional steps to push inflation back to its 2% target,” the Financial Times reports. While the kingdom sold a one-month bond at a negative yield four years ago, yesterday’s sale marks the first long-term bond the Bank of England has sold at a yield below zero. The bond sale comes after consumer price inflation in the UK dropped to a four-year low of 0.8%. The news comes as Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey told MPs yesterday that the UK is contemplating cutting interest rates into negative territory for the first time.

The only story of note on last night’s talk shows: An MP who recovered from covid-19 took shots at the Health Ministry.

Infected during a committee meeting? Rep. Sherine Farrag, who tested positive for the virus that causes covid-19 earlier this month, says she has recovered after receiving treatment at an isolation hospital. The MP told Sada El Balad’s Ahmed Moussa (watch, runtime: 13:45) that she believes she was infected during a joint meeting of the House health and planning and budgeting committees and alleges the infection is widespread in the Health Minister’s office. She also criticized the ministry for recently enacted guidelines that instruct health workers not to get tested for the virus unless they show symptoms. The Medical Syndicate criticized the same guidelines as “dangerous” in a statement last week.

Farrag made similar allegations in an appearance on Wael El Ibrachy’s show on state television (watch, runtime 13:02).

The MP’s rounds of the talk shows were grist for the domestic press, state and independent alike. See coverage in Akhbar Al Youm | Youm7 | El Watan | Al Mal | Masrawy.

Cabinet plans 1% corona tax on all salaries, says measure would be in effect for one year starting 1 July 2020: The Madbouly Cabinet has approved a draft law that would require companies to dock 1% from all employees’ monthly salaries during FY2020-2021 to help fund efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus, the Madbouly government announced in a statement yesterday. All public- and private-sector employees will face the tax, which would be in place for 12 months starting from the beginning of the upcoming fiscal year on 1 July. A separate 0.5% tax will be levied on state pensions during the same period.

Who will this affect? Everyone. Yesterday’s statement says that private sector workers, banking sector employees, civil servants, and employees of state-owned companies will all see 1% taken from their monthly salaries from July. Only people who earn below EGP 2k a month will be exempt from the levy.

What will the proceeds be used for? The money would be deposited into an account at the central bank and governed by rules to be drawn up by the cabinet. The better part will be earmarked for sectors and SMEs most affected by the pandemic, and the rest will be used to support vulnerable families and individuals, improve Egypt’s healthcare facilities, and fund medical research.

What’s next? The bill would need to clear the House of Representatives in a final vote at the general assembly, which is currently on a short recess until 7 June.

With fresh IMF funding in place and more to come, FinMin could cut back on local borrowing to curb the cost of servicing its debt: The Finance Ministry could cut down on the number of bids it accepts in EGP-denominated bond sales until the end of FY2019-2020, which wraps on 30 June, according to a statement. The move comes as the ministry looks for ways of reducing the cost of borrowing while continuing to diversify or optimize its sources of funding.

IMF funding is a less expensive way to plug financing gap: The decision comes after Egypt received the USD 2.77 bn rapid financing instrument from the IMF to help support its balance of payments as it grapples with the economic fallout from covid-19, the ministry says. “It makes sense to make use of cheaper financing from the IMF to [make available] resources to counterbalance the negative impact of the covid-19 shock,” EFG Hermes’ head of macroeconomic research Mohamed Abu Basha tells Bloomberg.

The news comes as the Madbouly government is reportedly looking to line up an additional USD 9 bn from international lenders, Bloomberg reported earlier this week, citing an unnamed official. The figure does not include the USD 2.77 bn rapid financing instrument, but could include a c. USD 5 bn stand-by arrangement (SBA) from the IMF, for which talks are already underway, and a further USD 4 bn from other international lenders.

Background: The Madbouly government is looking for ways of plugging the state’s budget deficit, which Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said earlier this month is expected to widen to 7.8-7.9% this fiscal year, from the 7.2% targeted prior to the crisis. The deficit could also widen again to 7.8% in FY2020-2021 (from a current projection of 6.3%) if the pandemic persists until the end of the year, Maait said.

Egypt’s GDP grew at a 5% clip in the third quarter of 1Q FY2019-2020, which ran from January to March, Planning Minister Hala El Said announced in a cabinet meeting yesterday. GDP had been expected to expand by 5.9% during the first three months of 2020, but fell short due to the covid-19 outbreak, El Said said. Tourism, manufacturing, and the wholesale and retail sectors contributed the most to the lower-than-expected growth, the statement says.

The economy is expected to grow 4% by the end of the fiscal year in July, down from a projected 5.8% before covid-19 took hold, El Said added. This would represent a loss of output worth nearly EGP 105 bn, or 2% of FY 2018-2019’s GDP. The government is pricing in an even sharper slowdown in FY2020-2021 if the pandemic continues into December after having significantly revised down its hypothetical forecast for the coming fiscal year to 2%.

DEBT WATCH- Sarwa closes two-tranche EGP 1.8 bn securitized bond issuance: Structured- and consumer-finance player Sarwa Capital has issued EGP 1.8 bn of securitized bonds on behalf of Contact Auto Credit and its subsidiaries, Hapi Journal reports. The issuance consists of two tranches underwritten by a group of unnamed banks. Contact, a Sarwa subsidiary, was awarded Egypt’s first consumer finance license last month.

DEBT WATCH- Raya bondholders agree to return EGP 200 mn of asset-backed securities, allowing re-issuance at lower interest: CIB, the National Bank of Egypt, and Attijariwafa Bank have agreed to return around EGP 200 mn remaining from the first tranche of Raya Holding’s EGP 500 mn securitized bond issuance to allow Raya to re-issue the securities at a lower interest rate, Al Mal reports, citing unnamed sources in the know. The securitized bonds, which Raya issued in October, had originally carried a 12.7% interest rate. Raya now wants to pay out 10.5% following the Central Bank of Egypt’s 300 bps interest rate cut in March.

Raya bumps up issuance: Al Mal’s sources said that Raya is now expected to reissue EGP 850 mn of the asset-backed securities, rather than EGP 700 mn as the company announced last month. The revised offering will include the outstanding EGP 200 mn and a new EGP 650 mn tranche, up from EGP 500 mn originally planned by the company. The issuance should be complete within two months at most, according to the sources.

DEBT WATCH- Egyptian Mortgage Refinance Company eyes EGP 500 mn securitized bond issuance through CIB, NBE: The Egyptian Mortgage Refinance Company is reportedly planning to tap CIB and the National Bank of Egypt to issue a EGP 500 mn securitized bond issuance on its behalf after the Eid El Fitr holiday, Al Mal reports, citing unnamed sources with knowledge of the matter. The issuance will include multiple tranches at tenors of up to three years.

INVESTMENT WATCH- Gov’t to build EGP 1 bn fiber-optic cable factory in SCZone: The state-affiliated Arab Organization for Industrialization and Benya Capital, a holding company specializing in IT infrastructure, signed an agreement to build a factory to produce fiber-optic cables at the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone), according to a cabinet statement. The 50k sqm facility is expected to cost over EGP 1 bn and produce nearly 60 km-worth of cables a year, SCZone Chairman Yehia Zaki said.

Ahmed Heikal on EGX Talks: Qalaa chairman Ahmed Heikal sat down for the first installment of the Egyptian Exchange’s EGX Talks Youtube series (watch, runtime: 18:38), which launched to keep retail investors engaged during the pandemic. Among the highlights:

• “We are in good shape”: Qalaa’s portfolio is diverse, with 46 companies in nine industries — a structure that has helped cushion the impact of the crisis. While some of its companies have been hard hit, others have remained relatively unaffected, Heikal said.
• Tax deadline deferral aiding investment: The government’s decision to push companies’ tax deadlines has enabled Qalaa to largely stick to its planned investment program, he said.
• Low oil prices will have an impact on refinery ERC’s profits despite it running at maximum capacity.

• Qalaa has deferred a portion of its employees’ salaries to help the company maintain liquidity, which will be paid after the pandemic is over.

EIB could provide EUR 1.13 bn for Egyptian transport projects over the next five years: The European Investment Bank (EIB) could finance Egyptian transport projects to the tune of EUR 1.13 bn over the next five years, the bank said yesterday. Funding will be largely directed towards renovation and expansion at the Cairo Metro and the tram lines in Alexandria. The EIB, which has been working with the government since 1979, focuses on funding water and transport infrastructure, as well as improving credit access to SMEs.

STARTUP WATCH- Alex Angels is setting up a EGP 100 mn fund for local ICT startups, with plans to invest the full EGP 100 mn before the year is out, according to Al Mal. The group will disburse the first EGP 30 mn round to startups by September. The fund is expected to support selected startups by providing up 30-50% of their capital value.

Three Egyptian law firms have been recognized in Global Arbitration Review’s list of top 100 law firms for international arbitration in its 2020 review: Youssef & Partners, Matouk Bassiouny, and Zulficar & Partners. The review does not include a ranking order, but does take note of each firm’s arbitration claim portfolio value.

EARNINGS WATCH- Heliopolis for Housing and Development (HHD) reported more than eight-fold y-o-y increase in its 9M2019-2020 topline to EGP 379.59 mn, up from EGP 39.59 mn in 9M2018-2019, according to an EGX disclosure (pdf). HHD’s revenues during the nine months jumped 143.2% y-o-y to EGP 1.14 bn.

Making It, our podcast on how to build a great business in Egypt, is taking a break and will return on Thursday, 4 June. Want to get caught up? Our season 2 guests so far inlcude:

• Sahar Salama, CEO of TPay
• Amro Abouesh, CEO of Tanmeyah
• Laila Sedky and Adel Sedky, Founder and CEO of Nola
• Mohamed El Kalla, CEO of CIRA

Catch all of seasons one and two on our website | Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Omny. We’re also available on Spotify, but only for non-MENA accounts. Subscribe to Making It on your podcatcher of choice here.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this season. Drop us a line at editorial@enterprise.press.

Is this the restaurant industry’s absurdist post-covid future? A bar in Maryland has found a novel way of enforcing social distancing.

This morning in the foreign press: Egypt’s daily tally has now risen every day for the past week — including a large 185-case surge on Tuesday — prompting the National’s Hamza Hendawi to wonder if the peak of Egypt’s epidemic is still yet to come. AFP, meanwhile asks whether we’re nearing a “a critical threshold” as cases continue to rise.

La Casa de Salah: Nasr City police forces arrested four heistmen who specialized in robbing shops using masks of Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah. Sputnik.and Talksport were among the foreign outlets taking note.

Will the coronavirus spell the end for globalization? Globalization and the preeminence of free trade has repeatedly come in waves since the height of the Roman Empire which should give us reason to trust that global trade for the most part will remain intact, according to this Financial Times video (watch, runtime 10:08). Following the downfall of the Roman Empire, which owed much of its success to efficient trade routes, it took several hundred years before large scale trade was carefully reinstituted by the Mongolian Empire and the Silk Road. The boom in global commerce that took place by connecting Asia to Europe eventually took a downturn after facilitating the spread of the plague to the rest of the world. But that didn’t mark an end to trade. Neither did the two world wars, the Spanish Flu or the 2008 financial crisis. Globalization will likely remain afloat post-covid, but the bigger question remains whether trade as we know it will be able to survive the threats posed by climate change and cyberwarfare.

It’s another indication that it is time to think about history in 500-year chunks. That’s the (oversimplified) takeaway from Jo Guldi and David Armitage’s The History Manifesto, which asks, “Why is 500 years better than five months or five years as a planning horizon? And why is history — especially long-term history — so essential to understanding the multiple pasts which gave rise to our conflicted present?”

You can get The History Manifesto on Amazon if you want to read it on your Kindle or read it without charge on Cambridge University’s open access website.

A division of Elsewedy Electric has signed a EGP 475 mn EPC contract to electrify 50k acres in East Owainat on a turnkey basis, according to an emailed statement (pdf). The company will complete the project within eight months.

Global travel restrictions are delaying international firms from conducting assessments for the four proposed coastal desalination plants ahead of their scheduled tenders later this year, Ater Hanoura, head of the Finance Ministry’s PPP division, told Al Mal. The tenders for the plants were initially slated to go ahead in 2Q2020 but will now be pushed back to 4Q2020.

The Financial Regulatory Authority has licensed Mubasher Capital Holding’s advisory arm to begin selling corporate valuation studies to its clients after it complied with regulations, Mubasher Chairman Ehab Rashad said, according to Al Mal.

Frozen fruit and vegetables producer Galina–Agrofreeze is investing EGP 87 mn to build a new factory, Chairman Abdel Wahed Soliman told Al Mal. The company secured a EGP 37 mn loan from Bank of Alexandria and the Saudi Investment Bank and will self-finance the remaining EGP 50 mn, he said. The company announced in February that it had broken ground on the factory.

Basil Moftah, general partner at Global Ventures: My Morning / WFH Routine looks each week at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions just for fun.

My name is Basil Moftah and I’m the general partner at Global Ventures, a Dubai-based venture capital fund investing in technology startups across the Middle East and North Africa.

At Global Ventures we’re industry agnostic and our investment portfolio has a range of tech startups in all spaces across the Middle East and North Africa. Recently we have been looking a lot at companies that are doing well because of covid-19 such as health tech companies. We like companies that are generating revenues with proven products and a good market fit looking to scale their business.

I usually wake up at around 7:00 am, check some emails and the news (which I'm not too proud to be doing first thing in the morning) and have breakfast. I usually start work around 9:30 am in a room I’ve made my home office and until 2:00-3:00 pm it's calls and emails. I have lunch with my family at 3:00 pm and take a short 30 minute break to sit in the garden with my wife for a quick chat before getting back into things until around 7:30-8:00 pm. I wear shorts now though; I don't wear trousers, which is great.

For every two to three hours of work I take a half-hour break to check on my kids, try to help out with some homework, hang out with my wife, or indulge in one of our daily family pranks. I also highly recommend eating ice cream with whipped cream at home. It really helps as a mental break and is a lot of fun.

We have a new puppy that we’ve been trying to teach new tricks. Unfortunately he hasn't learned very many but he’s still fun to play with. I try to go for a swim sometimes to wind down as well.

As a general partner of a fund you get to meet new entrepreneurs and listen to new business ideas and pitches, which can be very exciting. But there are a lot of other mundane but no less important tasks: Administering the fund, and making sure that all the accounting, the legal and technical things are in order. We are lucky that we have an awesome team at Global Ventures that supports us.

Our first USD 50 mn fund has made 14 investments over the last two years. We have three investments in food tech: LUNCH:ON, Kitopi and El Menus. We also have investments in the fintech space with a company called Tribal that does credit cards for startups, and Mamo Pay, which is a money transfer app for people who don't have bank accounts. We've also worked with B2B software enterprise companies and a cybersecurity company. Helium Health in Nigeria has also been a recent investment in health tech that we’ve added to our portfolio.

Over the last couple of years we've barely worked from the office. We've always been active in going out to meet entrepreneurs and attending conferences and events, but we still had some time to get together as a team and learn from each other or at least socialize. We started our lockdown here in Dubai towards the end of March so we’ve been at it for a full two months now. With meetings and virtual happy hours over Zoom and Google Hangouts, it has been a relatively smooth transition.

What I've found most fascinating about WFH is how it has challenged learning. There's so much learning that happens within a physical office space, purely by osmosis, and without necessarily speaking. WFH gets in the way of that kind of learning.

You realize pretty quickly that when you're home and working you can end up working all the time. This period proves that there's a lot that can be done without needing to commit that extra time to travel and commuting but it can also become a little overwhelming without barriers between work and personal time.

I've had more time to think about what makes a good investment: A great product in a bad market is really tough; a bad product in a good market can be a better opportunity. In our case, we like to look at where there's not so much competition or when something can be disrupted with technology. Finding great markets is the challenge of investing.

Having been temporarily isolated earlier in my career I’ve been better able to cope: When I first started my career my company moved me to their office in Italy where I didn’t know anyone, couldn’t speak the language and had never lived on my own before. It felt very lonely and isolating, especially for someone who loves socializing and going out but it was an important learning experience that I think prepared me for what we’re going through.

I’ve been watching How I Met Your Mother, which I’ve enjoyed because it doesn't really matter which episode you're on — they're just funny. I've also been watching the Michael Jordan documentary, The Last Dance, which I would highly recommend for lessons on leadership, commitment and winning.

Fear of Missing Out by Patrick Mcguiness (who coined the term FOMO) has been an interesting read recently. I’ve been enjoying the New York Times’ thoughtful analysis on this pandemic but I've become weary of other media outlets because everyone has been scaring the hell out of me.

When things cool down the first thing we're doing is holding a team meeting. But I'm personally looking forward to just going to the beach.