World Bank sees Egypt growing 3% in the year ending 30 June — one of only two MENA countries to post growth

Good morning, friends — as you can tell from this morning’s tl;dr, it’s a packed issue today, so let’s jump right in.

Plenty of you are parents (and a handful are high schoolers — we love you guys). With the end of the school year upon us, we want you to tell us how you’re doing with e-learning, particularly given the Madbouly government said yesterday it is looking to extend distance learning into the new school year starting this fall. Options on the table include live broadcasts of all lessons for high-school students and a hybrid system with both classroom and home-based learning.

** TELL US WHAT YOU THINK. We’ve put together a quick survey asking parents and students how things are going on the e-learning front. We’ll have the results in an upcoming issue of Blackboard, our weekly education vertical. And as is our custom, we’ll draw the names of three respondents who will receive an Enterprise mug and a bag of our favourite coffee from our friends at 30 North. Tap or click here to take the survey. It’s quick and painless, we promise.

Meanwhile, three things that are making us go “Hmmm…” this morning:

#1- IPOs could be back on the menu as US markets claw their way back to pre-covid highs. US shares have now recouped their losses for the year, the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal report despite a pandemic, an economic crisis and ongoing protests against racism and police violence. Markets sage Mohamed El Erian isn’t rushing to buy into the “reopening rally,” telling CNBC that he’s “personally … uncomfortable” banking on a sustained rally leading to a marked recovery.

Into the gap wades insurance provider / fintech startup Lemonade, which filed for a USD 100 mn IPO yesterday (you can check out its filing here). And closer to home, Saudi grocer BinDawood says it will go public in the region’s first IPO since covid-19 hit.

#2- Will Hong Kong’s woes be good for Dubai? “The city’s status as the premier Asian destination for industry talent is at stake” as Beijing curbs Hong Kong’s autonomy, and that has fund managers and traders looking to the exits, the Financial Times reports. That momentum could grow as HSBC takes heat for having overtly backed Beijing’s move to impose a new security law on HK. Expect Singapore to benefit from any relocation, but there’s a play to be made here for Dubai, too.

#3- When will we hug? The New York Times has an answer, having asked “511 epidemiologists when they expect to fly, hug, and do 18 other everyday activities again.”

GERD talks resume today: Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan’s irrigation ministers will hold a virtual meeting today to resume negotiations on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), according to a statement from Sudan’s irrigation ministry, which arranged the meeting. Observers from the US, South Africa, and European Union Commission will also sit in on the discussions, which will focus on “procedural issues related to the role of observers and outstanding negotiating issues,” the statement says.

We’ll know more about July’s electricity price hikes later today when Electricity Minister Mohamed Shaker holds a press conference to announce new electricity rates set to take hold on 1 July, Al Masry Al Youm. We have more in this morning’s Speed Round, below.

The IMF’s executive board will discuss by the end of this month or early July a USD 5.2 bn stand-by facility for Egypt, Masrawy writes, citing an unnamed Finance Ministry official.

EGP WATCH- The EGP gained nearly three piasters against the greenback yesterday, rebounding slightly after having returned to where it was seven months ago earlier in the week.

COVID-19 IN EGYPT-

The Health Ministry confirmed 34 new deaths from covid-19 yesterday, bringing the country’s total death toll to 1,271. Egypt has now disclosed a total of 35,444 confirmed cases of covid-19, after the ministry reported 1,365 new infections yesterday. We now have a total of 10,618 confirmed cases that have since tested negative for the virus after being hospitalized or isolated, of whom 9,375 have fully recovered.

The ministry is providing at-home treatment and medical care to some 9k people suspected to have contracted the virus to avoid crowding at hospitals, a senior ministry official said yesterday (watch, runtime: 7:03).

Amid the pandemic, we’re doing everything online: Fawry has seen a 250% increase in payment volumes since the beginning of the pandemic and is now serving more than 25 mn customers per month, CEO Ashraf Sabry told the local press.

Sister companies Uber and Careem have indefinitely suspended recruiting new drivers as demand has nosedived during the pandemic, Al Mal reports, citing an unnamed insider.

The Musicians Syndicate is pushing to get entertainment venues reopened at reduced capacities, according to Masrawy. Syndicate funds are starting to run dry as member contributions have come to a near halt in the absence of public performances, an official says.

Another 23 hotels will open after having earned permission from the Tourism Ministry, bringing the total number of hotels cleared to receive guests to 155, according to a ministry statement.

Rent relief for tourism sites: Restaurants at tourism sites, markets, museums and cultural heritage sites are getting a three-month rent holiday for June, July and August, according to a cabinet statement.

ON THE GLOBAL FRONT-

The World Health Organization is warning that the pandemic is still getting worse despite improvements in Europe and a gradual reopening of public life in many countries, according to the Associated Press. A total of 136k new cases were reported globally on Sunday in the largest single-day increase the outbreak began.

New Zealand now has zero covid-19 cases, according to the Associated Press. The country has gone 17 days since reporting a new case and all infected patients have recovered. NZ has fully reopened, but will leave in place border controls and quarantine requirements for new arrivals.

Saudi Arabia looks set to dramatically limit the number of people who will be allowed to perform the hajj this year as the kingdom’s covid-19 case count topped 100k, Reuters reports.

GLOBAL MACRO-

Global trade faces “ticking time-bomb” as labor crisis threatens shipping companies: Shipping companies could refuse to sail later this month due to concerns over safety on merchant vessels, the Financial Times reports. Up to 400k crew stranded by travel restrictions have been placed on emergency contract extensions, and industry leaders fear that many tankers will remain in ports when they expire on 16 June, as ship owners, unions and captains sound the alarm over safety.

EM currencies are surging now, but the longer-term outlook remains bleak, Barclays warns: Last week’s rally in emerging-market currencies is unlikely to last, even as the global economy reopens and the USD weakens, Barclays strategists wrote in a note picked up by Bloomberg. “The medium-term trajectory for EM FX is still lower and their curves are likely to steepen. Long-term fiscal sustainability will remain a challenge for some, even under optimistic post-Covid-19 assumptions,” the analysts wrote.

Oil giant BP is planning to cut 10k jobs — or 15% of its workforce — this year, in the latest indicator of the pressures brought on the industry by the pandemic, according to the Financial Times.

EGYPT BEYOND COVID-

Egypt Ventures green-lights impact investment strategy: The board of government-backed Egypt Ventures has approved a long-term strategy to focus investment on startups that align with Egypt’s Sustainable Development Goals, the VC firm said in a statement (pdf).

The price of covid-19 treatment provided by private hospitals led the conversation on the airwaves last night after Health Minister Hala Zayed met yesterday with representatives from the country’s major private healthcare providers and head of the Federation of Egyptian Industries’ private healthcare providers division, Alaa Abdel Meguid.

The Health Ministry has agreed to raise by 20% the prices laid out in the mandatory pricing scheme it had released last week for private hospitals treating covid-19 patients, after the private sector voiced its ed-treatment-info.com that the scheme was untenable, Abdel Meguid told Al Kahera Alaan’s Lamees El Hadidi (watch, runtime: 16:36). Rep. Magdy Morshed, a member of the House Health Committee, suggested to Lamees that the country doesn’t need to rely on private healthcare providers at all, and that state-owned hospitals alone can absorb covid-19 patients that require hospital care (watch, runtime: 3:18).

The private sector will cut operating costs as much as possible without sacrificing the quality of their services to help make ends meet under the ministry’s pricing scheme, Abdel Meguid told El Hekaya’s Amr Adib (watch, runtime: 2:32).

Anecdotes from patients’ families: Masaa DMC’s Eman El Hosary, meanwhile, spoke with a few people who relayed their personal experiences with private healthcare providers over the past several days, including one who said a family member was charged prices above those laid out in the ministry’s mandatory pricing scheme after he was unable to find an available bed at state-owned hospitals (watch, runtime: 5:06). Another caller alleged that a Sheikh Zayed hospital refused to admit a covid-19 case and overcharged the patient on a PCR test (watch, runtime: 5:41).

Elsewhere, Lamees discussed the expected resumption of GERD negotiations today with Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies advisor Hani Raslan, who said that Cairo, Addis Ababa, and Khartoum could reach a final agreement in as little as two weeks if Ethiopia is serious about seeing eye-to-eye with its downstream neighbors (watch, runtime: 8:17).

Also on the airwaves:

• A covid-19 vaccine produced by Anglo-Swedish company AstraZeneca could arrive to Egypt as early as September if ongoing clinical trials wrap up in time, presidential health advisor Mohamed Awad Tageldin said on the airwaves on Sunday (watch, runtime: 5:28)
• Public Enterprises Minister Hisham Tawfik also gave Lamees a breakdown of the Public Enterprises Act that the House of Representatives approved on Sunday (watch, runtime: 1:53). We had the story in yesterday’s issue.
• An apparent shortage of cigarettes in the country had the Federation of Egyptian Industries’ tobacco division head calling on the Consumer Protection Agency to investigate alleged hoarding from retailers to drive up prices (watch, runtime 2:16)

World Bank downgrades Egypt’s GDP growth forecast to 3.0% for the fiscal year ending this month: The World Bank expects Egypt’s economy to end the current fiscal year — which comes to a close on 30 June — with 3.0% growth, down from the 5.9% the bank had penciled in earlier this year. According to the World Bank’s June 2020 Global Economic Prospects report, the growth Egypt will achieve in FY2019-2020 will be buoyed by “generally supportive activity” before the onset of the pandemic, which has since been disrupted. The economy will expand at a slower pace of 2.1% in FY2020-2021. The World Bank had previously expected 6.0% growth in Egypt next fiscal year.

Egypt and Djibouti are the only two MENA countries whose economies will not contract this fiscal year, and Egypt’s forecasted growth this fiscal year is more than double Djibouti’s 1.3%.

The region’s oil importers (including Egypt) are expected to fare better than oil exporters this year and next, but their economies remain reliant on tourism activity, leaving them vulnerable due to an anticipated drop in arrivals from key source areas, including Europe. The report also expects investments and exports to contract “amid weak global and domestic confidence and high policy uncertainty.”

Uncertainty and volatility of oil prices is also a downside risk for the region as a whole, the report says. While lower oil prices initially provided importers with a bit of current account relief, high volatility is taking a toll on investment and confidence, and prices remaining low “would also further erode MENA’s already weak fiscal space and heavily constrain investment activity in the region, as oil prices and public investment often comove closely in MENA.”

In the medium term, staying the course on structural reforms to bump up investment is key for Egypt and the region at large. The report points to Egypt’s economic reforms as being pro-growth and says financial sector reforms across the region will help improve the investment climate. “But success is contingent upon a sustained commitment to reforms, including by newly formed governments.”

The report sees emerging markets and developing economies turning in their weakest showing in 60 years this year, with a projected 2.5% contraction in 2020. “The current global recession is also unique in that global growth forecasts have been revised down more steeply and rapidly than in any other recessions since at least 1990.” Emerging markets are expected to begin recovering in 2021, however, as trade and investment begin to firm up again and the effects of the pandemic begin to wane. Globally, the World Bank’s baseline scenario sees “a deep global recession” in the cards for 2020, which would see global output contracting 5.2% — a decline nearly threefold that of 2009.

The global economy would be positioned for a recovery in 2021 if lockdown measures are lifted by the end of this year around the world, even if some social distancing practices remain in place. “That said, the envisioned global recovery next year is moderate, with the level of global output in 2021 still 5.9% below that of January forecasts. This reflects various headwinds that will weigh on activity over the medium term.”

You can read the full report here (pdf) and the MENA chapter here (pdf). The press release is also available here.

Sovereign fund in talks with investors in fintech, financial inclusion: The Sovereign Fund of Egypt (SFE) is in talks with unnamed investors with appetite for fintech and services that will promote financial inclusion, SFE chief executive Ayman Soliman said at a virtual presser yesterday. The fund, which is recalibrating its plans in light of the covid-19 pandemic, is finding that interest has been “revitalized” in this area. More investors now want to tap Egypt’s large unbanked population through digital services, especially as Egyptians have a new-found appreciation for e-payments, ecommerce, and services that offer solutions at a distance, Soliman said.

Look for news in the “near future” on the SFE’s pipeline, which includes investments in pharma manufacturing, healthcare services, logistics, food processing, agriculture, and fintech and banking, and the fund is currently setting up four sub-funds, with one for healthcare and pharma among its top priorities.

Healthcare, in particular, will require “significant investment” going forward, Soliman added. He noted that the sub fund will be majority owned by a private-sector strategic investor with direct experience in the field. The move aims to help make Egypt a regional hub for medical tourism and pharma exports.

Other key takeaways:

• Egyptian expats are particularly enthused about the SFE: Many who’ve lived in developed countries over the past years come equipped with fresh, progressive ideas and a tremendous willingness to invest.
• Fund’s first financial statements were delayed due to pandemic: The fund’s first general assembly meeting to approve the SPE’s appointment of an auditor has been delayed due to the outbreak. The fund is committed to publishing its financial statements for FY2019 and will regularly report its earnings.
• On investor appetite: The pandemic has weighed heavily on the services and tourism sector, so recently unveiled talks to move ahead with an overhaul of the Bab El Azab tourist site will therefore be moving slowly. The fund has primarily been getting increasing inquiries from investors interested in the lower-risk goods and infrastructure sectors.

What to expect from the electricity price hikes to be announced today: Electricity Minister Mohamed Shaker has floated two different proposals to the Egyptian Electric Utility and Consumer Protection Agency’s (Egyptera) board of directors for a hike in electricity prices expected to take effect on 1 July, the local press reported, quoting unnamed sources. Shaker is due to reveal the price hikes at a press conference later today.

Scenario #1: The rates paid by households, stores, and SMEs will rise only slightly for lower consumption tiers and scale up for higher tiers. This would mean the hikes will be mostly borne by heavy consumers, leaving unchanged the existing system of cross subsidies in which low-income households are subsidized by the high markup charged to high-income ones.

Scenario #2: Rates will increase within a fixed 13-36% range for all tiers and sectors of the economy, while increasing cross subsidies to support low-income families.

Factories wouldn’t pay more under the first scenario as they have been struggling to keep up with rising costs on every front, and have themselves been calling for price cuts. Under the second scenario, the increase would reportedly be “very slight” for manufacturers. We noted recently that the government is also mulling exempting farmers to help shield them from the burden of the covid-19 pandemic.

Background: The Electricity Ministry is on course to fully phase out subsidies in the coming fiscal year, making this the final round of price hikes. The ministry had originally planned to reach this point by 2019, but extended the timeline under orders from President Abdel Fattah El Sisi. Average electricity prices increased by 15% in July 2019 and by 26% in 2018.

Egypt has deployed EGP 63 bn of its covid-19 stimulus program: The government has spent EGP 63 bn of the EGP 100 bn it earmarked for a stimulus package to tackle the economic fallout from covid-19, the Finance Ministry said in a statement yesterday, which provided a breakdown of how the money has been allocated.

Food security: Amid reports global players were slowing exports of key food commodities, the Supply Ministry received EGP 28.6 bn to ensure sufficient provisions of staple goods, with EGP 16 bn allocated for purchasing local wheat, the statement says. The General Authority For Supply Commodities was provided with EGP 6 bn to buy imported wheat. Another EGP 3.7 bn was spent on transport, water and sewage infrastructure, health insurance, textiles, and culture, the ministry added without providing a breakdown.

Support for manufacturers: Some EGP 16.6 bn was spent on providing assistance to industry, alongside cuts to gas and electricity prices and a three-month real estate tax holiday, the ministry said. The government provided EGP 3 bn to exporters via the Export Development Fund. The tourism and civil aviation sectors saw an EGP 5 bn investment from the government, another EGP 10 bn was spent paying contractors and suppliers, and EGP 3 bn went towards roadworks.

Covid-19 healthcare costs: The government has spent EGP 11 bn on the healthcare sector to set up quarantine wards and provide medicines, supplies, and bonuses to medical staff, among other costs. An EGP 2.6 bn emergency fund was set up for front-line workers treating patients, and EGP 400 mn was spent training medical students to work on the frontlines in hospitals.

The pandemic has cost the Egyptian economy EGP 130 bn in lost income and the government has seen a EGP 124 bn shortfall in tax and non-tax revenues since the beginning of the outbreak, the statement said. The economy is expected to grow at a 4% clip this fiscal year, down from 5.8% projected before the covid-19 outbreak, according to the latest government forecasts.

Background: President Abdel Fattah El Sisi allocated an EGP 100 bn stimulus and bailout package in late March to insulate the economy from the impact of covid-19 outbreak. Yesterday’s announcement means that the government has spent around EGP 20 bn of the emergency funding since the first week of May.

Covid-19 hasn’t derailed Egypt’s reform drive, Al Mashat tells Bloomberg: The Madbouly government hasn’t allowed the covid-19 pandemic to derail structural reform and is looking past the crisis to build on existing reform efforts, International Cooperation Minister Rania Al Mashat told Bloomberg in a televised interview yesterday (watch, runtime: 7:35). “We have not been sidetracked by covid, but we are looking into details on how to create more jobs, create a more inclusive economy and that is going to be important to investors and for everyone who is following the Egypt story,” she said. The government is now looking to initiate a second wave of reforms post-covid focused on improving the business environment for the private sector, boosting productivity, and targeted policies directed at priority sectors, she said.

Mashat didn’t disclose the details of the government’s external financing plans: The minister alluded to future financing agreements with several multilateral donors — including the World Bank, the French Development Bank, and the Japan International Cooperation Agency — but remained tight-lipped on how much the government is seeking and when agreements would be finalized. The government has scheduled board meetings with several of the organizations which will take place “very soon,” she said.

Four or five of Egypt’s two dozen cement factories could be forced to close in the coming months, as the covid-19 pandemic batters an industry already suffering from a supply glut, officials and analysts told Reuters. The economic fallout from the crisis may be the final nail in the coffin for foreign companies already struggling to pay their bills.

“The economics just don’t make sense”: Lorenz Naeger, CFO of Germany’s Heidelberg Cement, recently told the company’s annual general meeting that Egypt sales fell below expectations. Its subsidiary Suez Cement cut management salaries by 20-30% last month. “Several players are in deep distress today as most producers are generating losses at the gross and EBITDA level and balance sheets are in bad shape in some cases,” said Yousef Husseini, analyst at EFG Hermes. “The economics just don’t make sense.”

Supply glut: The nation’s production capacity is between 80-85 mn tonnes, Reuters says, but consumption fell to nearly 44 mn tons in 2019 from almost 50 mn tons in 2017. Consumption fell 3% in March and 8% in April after rising in the first two months of the year.

What can be done? Even with the government lowering energy prices, industry leaders Enterprise spoke with in April are calling for the state to bail out the industry with price controls and export quotas. “This matter is being carefully studied by officials at the ministry in full coordination with the private sector,” an unnamed Trade and Industry Ministry official told Reuters.

Background: National Cement, Tourah Cement, and El Nahda Cement all shut down their operations, either temporarily or permanently, last year, as the gap between supply and demand grew. Hikes in electricity prices from years of subsidy cuts raised production costs and earnings tanked, with only two of the seven listed companies reporting profits last year.

LEGISLATION WATCH- Simplified commercial registry a new outdoor advertising bill get preliminary House nods: The House of Representatives’ general assembly granted yesterday its preliminary approval to the draft Unified Economic Operators Registry Act, which would see new businesses registered under one roof, the local press reports. The bill would merge the five existing registries — the commercial, industrial and commercial agents and mediators registries and the import and export records — into a single register administered by the Supply Ministry’s Internal Trade Development Authority (ITDA). The draft law would, if approved, streamline the process for manufacturers working across sectors who have not managed to register in all relevant databases in their set-up process.

The House also approved in principle yesterday a bill to regulate roadside ads and billboards, which would regulate both the content and number of advertisements on roads and bridges, according to Al Mal.

REGULATION WATCH- FRA suspends issuing insurance licenses for a year; auditors will need to be insured: The Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) has placed a one-year moratorium on issuing licenses for insurance and insurance brokers, a statement (pdf) by the authority said. Chairman Mohamed Omran said that current brokerage activity meets the market’s requirements and that the period will be used to ensure that companies comply with best practices. “There is no need to increase the number of companies operating in the sector by licensing new companies, as this may harm the industry,” he said.

Auditors will now also be required to be insured for the sum of EGP 100k, or twice their annual fees, whichever is greater, in order to register with the FRA, Youm7 reports. Auditors will need to submit the documents within six months of registering.

REGULATION WATCH- You can now have an outside party who isn’t a board member sit on your audit committee following a regulatory change (pdf) handed down by the Financial Regulatory Authority. The decision applies to both listed companies and to non-bank financial services outfits regulated by FRA.

BRIEFLY NOTED-

• It will cost the central bank EGP 500-600 mn to finance the cost of rolling out 100k point-of-sale machines nationwide, Al Mal. The machines are rolling out as part of the CBE’s digital push. The CBE is also giving incentives to banks that promote POS payments.
• Emaar Misr has clarified that its bid to build an EGP 40 bn development in the Greater Cairo Area isn’t new, according to a disclosure to the EGX. Its Cairo Gate proposal has been under review by authorities for some time, it said.
• Sika Egypt has completed its EGP 460 mn acquisition of Modern Waterproofing (Bitumode), according to an EGX disclosure.

EARNINGS WATCH- Orascom Development profits fall 50% in 1Q2020: Orascom Development Egypt (ODE) profits fell 51% year-on-year to EGP 92 mn in 1Q2020 as the disruption caused by the covid-19 pandemic hurt its tourism operations, according to the company’s earnings statement (pdf). “Despite the disruptions caused by covid-19, ODE is confident in the underlying resilience of its businesses and operating model. ODE has a strong balance sheet and is confident that its liquidity needs will be well covered during these challenging times,” CEO Abdelhamid Abouyoussef said. The company is anticipating the restoration of international flights, reporting a recent surge in forward bookings to El Gouna hotels.

Eastern Company reported net profits of EGP 3.1 bn in 9M2019-2020, up 8% from the same period last year, according to the company’s earnings statement (pdf). Revenues rose 8.6% y-o-y to reach EGP 11.4 bn.

For photo nerds: 1.4k black and white photographs of the 1922-1925 Vaسlley of the Kings excavation have been colorized and converted to digital, including the world-famous photo of archaeologist Howard Carter cleaning Tutankhamun’s coffin, the Daily Mail reports. Plus: AFP looks at Bedouin face masks being produced in North Sinai.

This week on Making It, our podcast on building a great business in Egypt, we spoke with Tarek Assaad and Karim Hussein — two thirds of Algebra Ventures’ managing partner trio — about successfully launching the biggest tech VC fund in Egypt, and the qualities that make a startup investment-worthy.

Tap or click here to listen to the episode 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.

Russia sees Egypt’s peace initiative as the primary forum in which Libya’s future will be decided, Reuters reports, piggybacking on a call between Russian leader Vladimir Putin and President Abdel Fattah El Sisi yesterday. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is also backing Cairo’s initiative even as forces loyal to Libya’s UN-recognised government said they would press ahead with an offensive to capture territory in the country’s west, the Guardian and the Associated Press report.

Meanwhile:

• Local development program: The International Cooperation Ministry has launched the EGP 111 mn second phase of a program to develop pavements as well as water and sanitation networks in Alexandria, Assiut, Giza, Port Said and Sharqiyah. The program is funded by the European Union and the European Investment Bank, among other parties.
• Cotton exports dropped 9.52% y-o-y during the second quarter of the agricultural season (December 2019- February 2020) to 1.2 mn qintars, compared to 3.6 mn qintars during the same period last year, according to a Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics release (pdf).

Palm Hills Developments (PHD) has signed a EGP 3.5 bn agreement with Al Shorouk for Touristic Developments to build a mixed-use development in Ain Sokhna, according to a bourse disclosure (pdf). The project will cover 116 feddans and be developed over five phases. The first phase of homes is set to be delivered three years from the project’s launch.

GB Auto is now beginning to sell the new 2020 Chery Tiggo 7 at a starting price of EGP 269k, according to a press release (pdf). The SUV has been assembled locally in cooperation with Aboul Fotouh Automotive Group. GB Auto is planning to introduce an online car buying and booking service through their website to accommodate customers during the current pandemic.

Egypt will receive the first batch of 31 railcars from Russia’s Transmashholding under a EUR 1.02 bn agreement to supply 1,300 railcars this month, the Russian embassy in Egypt said yesterday.