EnterpriseAM — Jabs for the elderly + chronically ill roll out today

Good morning, nice people. Congratulations on making it through another workweek. Today can neither be classified as busy nor slow — but there’s plenty of big news and important stories to keep your eye on as they unfold.

THE BIG STORY HERE AT HOME: Diplomacy continued to dominate the news cycle since we last wrote to you yesterday afternoon, but you can expect our vaccination program to take over as the Health Ministry begins rolling out jabs to the elderly and those with chronic illnesses who registered on its website. You’ll find chapter and verse on both stories in the news well, below.

THE BIG STORY INTERNATIONALLY: There isn’t one. It’s one of those rare mornings where the global press is divergent in its coverage. Among the front-page stories:

• Scientists are reassessing their views on covid-19 and the outlook for the end of the pandemic with the emergence of new variants. (Reuters)
• Protests in Myanmar are escalating, with security forces killing at least 34 people yesterday. (Associated Press)
• New York Governor Andrew Cuomo isn’t quitting over [redacted] harassment allegations, but has issued an apology to the women aides who accused him. (WSJ)
• The US House passed a police reform bill named for George Floyd, who was murdered on video by a police officer last year. (Washington Post)

*** CATCH UP QUICK with the top stories from yesterday’s edition of EnterprisePM:

• Non-oil private sector conditions worsened for the third consecutive month in February, but at a milder rate.
• Telecom Egypt is planning to connect landlocked and coastal African countries to Europe through a giant subsea system.
• The FRA wants listed companies to justify stock splits.

WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY-

The LNG carrier that arrived yesterday at the Damietta liquefaction plant will set sail this evening or tomorrow morning, as it needs no more than 36 hours to load the shipment, El Watan reports, citing unnamed Oil Ministry sources. The carrier — which marks the second to leave the facility since it resumed operations last month — will then make its way to China with some 157k cbm of LNG on board, industry sources said yesterday. The plant was brought back to life recently, after operator Eni last year reached an agreement with the government and its former partner Naturgy.

OPEC+ may unexpectedly maintain production curbs at its meeting today. Or at least so say three OPEC+ sources, who tell Reuters that the cartel may opt against beginning to taper off supply cuts. Despite oil prices rising to pre-covid levels, market demand remains fragile, they say. The market has been expecting OPEC+ to boost production by 500k barrels per day in April and Saudi Arabia to add another 1 mn barrels.

SIGN OF THE TIMES- CIB processed more than double the number of mobile banking transactions in 2020 than it did in 2019, with the number of transactions soaring 118% worth a total of EGP 53 bn. The leading private sector bank also logged a 35% y-o-y increase in users of its personal internet banking service increased by 35%, according to a report picked up by Al Mal. CIB customers accounted for 28% of POS transactions and 19% of online transactions during the year, according to the report.

PSA- Leave the umbrella at home, but bundle up: Our favorite weather app suggests we won’t see any rainfall across the capital (of which there were scattered sightings yesterday) but the cold spell is likely to continue going into the weekend.

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CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

It’s Day 4 of the EFG Hermes Virtual Investor Conference: The conference is headlined as “Frontier Emerging Markets Regaining Momentum” and brings together executives from 197 companies and more than 700 investors from 253 global institutions to exchange insights on the current state of frontier and emerging markets. The event runs until next Tuesday, 9 March.

It’s also the fourth and penultimate day of the Aswan Forum for Peace and Development, which wraps tomorrow.

Key data points in the coming days and weeks:

• Foreign reserves figures should be out within the next few days.
• Inflation data will drop on Wednesday, 10 March.
• The Central Bank of Egypt will discuss interest rates on Thursday, 18 March.

Check out our full calendar on the web for a comprehensive listing of upcoming news events, national holidays and news triggers.

The Health Ministry reported 577 new covid-19 infections yesterday, down from 581 the day before. Egypt has now disclosed a total of 184,168 confirmed cases of covid-19. The ministry also reported 44 new deaths, bringing the country’s total death toll to 10,822.

Vaccines will be administered as of today for the elderly and those with chronic conditions who registered for the jab, Ahram Gate reports, citing unnamed Health Ministry sources. All Egyptian citizens and non-Egyptians living in Egypt (including diplomats, residents, and refugees) who are either 65+ or above the age of 18 and suffering from chronic conditions are ensured the vaccine once they register through the Health Ministry’s website.

At least 150k eligible individuals have signed up for a vaccine on the website as of yesterday evening, the sources say. The first day of registration saw more than 68k people signing up, Assistant Health Minister Khaled Megahed said on Tuesday.

The registrations come as Egypt should be receiving 8.6 mn doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine sometime this week as part of the agreement signed with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Gavi/Covax initiative, which will see Egypt receive 40 mn doses of the AstraZeneca jab during 2021, Health Minister Hala Zayed previously said.

Sudan became the first MENA country to get its hands on the jab through the initiative with a shipment of over 800k doses landing yesterday. The initiative aims to deliver around 90 mn jabs to Africa in 1Q2021, according to a UNICEF statement. The first round of vaccine allocations by Covax will support the inoculation of first-line workers and those above 45 with chronic illnesses “living in areas with high transmission or anticipated high transmission, marking the first phase of the nationwide vaccination campaign,” the statement said.

REFRESHER ON VACCINE DELIVERIES IN THE REST OF AFRICA: Nigeria received 3.94 mn doses of the vaccine on Monday, becoming the third country to receive a shipment from Covax. This was also the largest shipment sent out by Covax so far, after Ghana received a 600k-dose delivery and Ivory Coast got a 504k-dose shipment last week. Senegal also landed 324k doses of the jab on Tuesday, while Rwanda was due to receive its first 340k-dose batch yesterday.

A global “fake” covid-19 vaccine network was dismantled in South Africa and China, with “hundreds” of the knock-off jabs seized as several people were arrested, Interpol reported yesterday. The international policing authority argues that this represents only the "tip of the iceberg" in vaccine-related crime.

YOUR COVID FIGURE OF THE DAY: USD 4 tn. That’s the expected economic cost to the global economy of having only half the population of developing countries vaccinated by mid-2021, according to a study from the University of Maryland. That price tag jumps to USD 9 tn if developing countries don’t vaccinate any of their citizens this year. The study caught the attention of Al Hayah Al Youm’s Mohamed Sherdy (watch, runtime: 4:00) and Masaa DMC’s Ramy Radwan (watch, runtime: 3:39).

Anghami has plans to expand in Egypt after it becomes the Middle East’s first tech company to list in New York with plans to merge with Nasdaq-listed SPAC Vistas Media Acquisition Company, it said in a statement carried by several press outlets (Bloomberg | Reuters). The streaming service, which has over 70 mn registered users and is used all over MENA, could be valued at c.USD 300 mn when the process wraps up, Bloomberg quoted sources in the know as saying. As part of the agreement, Anghami secured a USD 30 mn commitment from the UAE’s Shuaa Capital and USD 10 mn from Vistas’ parent in “PIPE” (private investment in public equity) financing. Anghami’s topline rose 80% in 2020, and expects a 5x increase over the next three years, as paid streaming grew popular in recent years, and more so during the pandemic.

The announcement comes a little over a month after Shuaa acquired a minority stake, adding its name to regional venture capital firms and strategic investors that control a combined 68%. The shareholders include Middle East Venture Partners, Samena Capital, Emirates Integrated Telecommunications, MBC Group, and Etihad Etisalat, according to Bloomberg. Lebanese founders Ellie Habib and Eddy Maroun control the remaining shares.

Big plans for Egypt: Part of the proceeds from the listing, which could happen as early as June, will be used for recruitment and investment in key markets including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Habib said. “Being a US listed public company gives us access to growth capital and a global platform that is the best in the world,” the co-founder and CEO added.

Al Ahly Capital is reportedly in the final stretch of acquiring a majority stake in e-payment firm Momken in a EGP 100 mn transaction, according to a report in Al Mal’s print edition citing unnamed sources with knowledge of the matter. The two sides are expected to sign the final contracts for the acquisition “within days,” the sources say. No further details were disclosed on how much of the e-payments firm Al Ahly Capital will snap up, but earlier reports had suggested Al Ahly — the National Bank of Egypt’s investment arm — could acquire 100% of Momken.

Some 7k new hotel rooms are expected to be added to Egypt’s hospitality sector by 2023 as disruptions inflicted by covid-19 fade, according to a quarterly report by Collier’s International (pdf). New construction projects put on ice during the pandemic are looking to resume activity, which is expected to grow the number of hotel rooms in Alexandria by 12% and those in Cairo by some 4%. A Tourism Ministry source had said last month that Egypt wants to add 10k hotel rooms by the end of 2021 alone.

How hotels are doing now: This comes after hotel occupancy rates in 2020 fell by up to 66% y-o-y in Cairo, 43% in Alexandria, 56% in Sharm El-Sheikh and 60% in Hurghada due to the collapse of global tourism this past year. Egypt has missed out on some USD 14 bn in FX due to the outbreak.

But we’re banking on a quick recovery expected to bring tourism back to pre-pandemic levels by 2022 thanks to our many open air attractions according to Tourism Minister Khaled El Enany. Tourism has already been on the upswing since July with some 270k – 290k visitors on average now entering the country every month for the past three months. The sector made USD 800 mn in revenues from July through September 2020, which is a sizable 162% increase from the previous quarter, but still lags far behind its USD 4.2 bn quarterly revenue reported over the same period in 2019.

Private sector companies and government bodies have an additional six months to install electronic payment terminals on-site, as mandated by the E-Payments Act’s executive regulations. The additional grace period earned approval from the Madbouly Cabinet yesterday, according to a statement out following their weekly meeting. The law, which passed the House of Representatives in 2019, requires public and private sector entities to make payments electronically. It also aims to gradually get everyone to pay for their everyday purchases electronically wherever possible by putting limits on accepting banknotes as payment. Cabinet had signed off last September on a six-month grace period for everyone to get their ducks in a row, which is set to expire later this month.

Also approved yesterday:

• Pushing the retirement age for 145 medical doctors by two years to 62 to prop up the country’s healthcare system during the pandemic;
• Incentives for those who purchase locally-produced electric vehicles (which aren’t specified in the statement);
• Tapping state-owned Telecom Egypt to set up fiber optics infrastructure in the third phase of the CIT Ministry’s plan to extend the network to all governorates.

RATP inks electric rail contract: French transport company RATP Dev has signed a contract with the National Authority for Tunnels to manage and operate the planned electric rail line between Salam City and Tenth of Ramadan City, via the new administrative capital, cabinet said in a statement yesterday. Ministers previously gave the authority the all-clear to contract with the firm in January. RATP Dev — short for Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens — operates the Paris metro.

About the project: The first and second phases of the 90-km line — which run from Adly Mansour station to several areas of the new capital — are expected to open in October. The line is being built by CREC-AVIC International Consortium (which includes China Railway Group Limited and Aviation Industry Corporation of China) working alongside a few Egyptian firms including Orascom Construction.

Arab countries need to band together for a unified, firm policy against Turkey’s “destructive practices” in the region, including in Libya, Syria, and Iraq, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said at a ministerial meeting yesterday ahead of an Arab League summit later in the day, according to a Foreign Ministry statement. Turkey was the subject of the Arab League meeting, in which the member countries discussed Ankara’s interference in Arab countries’ internal affairs, which Shoukry said has “only served to deepen the intensity of polarization and stroke differences in the Arab world,” the statement said.

Also from the EastMed: President Abdel Fattah El Sisi and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis discussed regional issues and energy cooperation in the area, according to an Ittihadiya statement that is otherwise scant on details.

Ankara could sing a different tune in the EastMed if relations warm up: The two countries could negotiate an East Med maritime demarcation agreement if strained relations improve, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said at a presser Wednesday, according to Reuters. Relations between the two countries turned unfriendly last year when Turkey refused to recognise an agreement between Egypt and Greece creating a joint economic zone in the Eastern Mediterranean, accusing the two countries of infringing on its continental shelf. But the Egypt-Greece agreement was a reaction to moves by Ankara, which set up a joint zone with the Tripoli-based government in Libya and launched gas exploration efforts in disputed territory.

One friendship that we’ve definitely thawed: Shoukry sat down with Qatari Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani for bilateral talks between Egypt and Qatar on the sidelines of the Arab League meetings, according to a statement from Qatar’s Foreign Ministry. The two ministers discussed the course of joint Arab action and ways to enhance cooperation between both countries in the future. Reuters also took note.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia doesn’t want to bring international mediators to the table yet, saying that doing so at this stage of negotiations over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) could undermine efforts by the African Union to lead the resolution of the impasse between Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan, the country’s foreign ministry spokesperson said at a presser yesterday. AU-led talks will bring a mutually beneficial solution for everyone, Addis Ababa said in response to calls from Sudan and Egypt to set up an international quartet to mediate the negotiations.

The AU has only been acting as a sponsor for the talks, and has not taken on the role of a facilitator or mediator, deputy head of the Egyptian Council for African Affairs Salah Halima told Al Hayah Al Youm’s Mohamed Sherdy yesterday. The Declaration of Principles Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia signed back in 2015 allows for the introduction of facilitators or mediators to help resolve any potential disagreements — which is what Cairo and Khartoum are currently looking to do, Halima explained (watch, runtime: 3:08).

Talaat Moustafa Group’s (TMG) net income declined 11% in 2020 to EGP 1.7 bn, compared to EGP 1.9 bn a year earlier, according to the company’s earnings statement (pdf). This came despite revenues jumping 20% y-o-y to hit EGP 14 bn during the year.

Misr Capital, Banque Misr’s investment arm, has been named Egypt’s best investment bank in the 2021 edition of Global Finance’s World Best Investment Bank awards, Misr Capital said in a statement (pdf). Misr Capital currently has more than EGP 27 bn in assets under management.

Orascom Construction will construct the USD 150 mn Magdi Yacoub Global Heart Center in Sixth of October City, a 300-bed facility with capacity to treat 120k people every year, the company said in a statement (pdf).

Egyptian-American Laila Pence was named among Forbes’ 2021 list of Best-in-State Wealth Advisors. Pence had a chat with Al Hayah Al Youm’s Mohamed Sherdy on Tuesday (watch, runtime: 9:38).

Egypt walked away with a silver medal at the 2021 International Shooting Sport Federation World Cup, after losing to Russia in the final match, according to a cabinet statement yesterday.

Diplomacy continued to reign supreme on the airwaves, as the talking heads dove into everything from Turkey to Qatar to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. We have the latest and greatest on all of this in Diplomacy, above.

Restoring our ties with Qatar is all well and good, but Doha should remember why we cut them in the first place and that there were serious issues behind the decision, Al Hayah Al Youm’s Mohamed Sherdy said (watch, runtime: 2:32). Ala Mas’ouleety’s Ahmed Moussa, meanwhile, has apparently become a licensed body language interpreter, taking a picture of Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and Qatar’s Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani as evidence of Egypt still not being happy with Qatar (watch, runtime: 6:39).

Ahmed Aboul Gheit was reappointed as the Arab League’s secretary general for a second five-year term, state-run news agency MENA said. Aboul Gheit’s second term comes as Egypt and the wider league push to resolve longstanding conflicts in the Arab world, including in Syria and Libya, Yahduth fi Misr’s Sherif Amer said (watch, runtime: 3:03). Sherdy echoed Amer’s thoughts, pointing also to Egypt’s push to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks (watch, runtime: 1:09).

Egypt is ending a quiet week in the foreign press on a quiet note. The only story out there concerning us: Authorities are questioning a Suhag University law professor for a controversial exam question he gave his students involving the hypothetical death of Zamalek footballer Achraf Bencharki. (Gulf News)

Egypt wants international companies to help it reclaim a 500k-acre area in the Western Desert as part of the Toshka Project, Al Mal reports. Sources tell the newspaper that the government is deciding which area it wants to cultivate and working out the costs of the project before officially announcing it to investors. It is also in the process of digging a new canal in the area, which will allow the reclamation of more land. Since its launch in 1997, the Toshka project has so far reclaimed over 30.5k acres of land out of the planned 540k acres in the Western Desert.

Other things we’re keeping an eye on this morning:

• Ikea opened its full-scale store at Marakez’s Mall of Arabia yesterday, after the Swedish furniture retailer had opened another, smaller branch at the mall until the full store opened.
• Samsung signed the contracts to set up a USD 30 mn factory in Beni Suef to manufacture educational tablets for public school students in Egypt.
• AirCairo and Turkish-German airline SunExpress are running 30 weekly flights between Hurghada and 14 German, Swiss, and Austrian airports as of May.

The world suffered less “digital darkness” last year with 155 internet disruptions reported in 29 countries compared to 213 in 2019, according to a report (pdf) by digital rights group Access Now. India topped the list, accounting for more than two-thirds of shutdowns that occurred last year as it locked down the Jammu and Kashmir region. Internet blackouts cost economies USD 4 bn last year, Bloomberg said, citing research group Top10VPN.

Big Tech is shaking up its ad policies: Google plans to stop selling ads that rely on individual web browsing history, and will instead use other ways to “track” users around the internet after it ends support for third-party cookies in Chrome by early 2022, Director of Product Management, Ads Privacy and Trust David Temkin said in a blog post yesterday. Meanwhile, Facebook is lifting its temporary ban on political and social-issue ads in the US today, which were put in place after the 2020 presidential election to limit the spread of misinformation, it said in an updated announcement.

Also worth knowing this morning:

• Russia to the US: Don’t play with fire: The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement slamming the new sanctions Washington imposed over the imprisonment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny as evidence of a "hostile anti-Russian lunge."
• Israeli officials and soldiers and Hamas are officially under investigation by the International Criminal Court, which is looking into potential war crimes committed in Palestine (including during the 2014 Gaza war).

Mohsen Sarhan, CEO of the Egyptian Food Bank: Each week, my Morning / WFH Routine looks at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions just for fun. Speaking to us this week is Mohsen Sarhan, CEO of the Egyptian Food Bank (LinkedIn). Edited excerpts from our conversation:

My name is Mohsen Sarhan, and I'm a value driven individual. Everything I do is determined by how I’m adding value. It is the main criterion I use to decide when and for how long I continue walking down a chosen path.

I'm also the CEO of the Egyptian Food Bank and founder of a social impact evaluation firm called Athar (LinkedIn). I started my position as chief executive at the Food Bank about a year ago, just two weeks before the pandemic hit.

I wake up at 5:30 am and typically start my day with some exercise. I used to train for long distance running, and if I had a training session dialed in before a race I’d get to that until about 7:00 am. Afterwards I have coffee while I reflect on my interactions with people from the day before. I try to maintain a compassionate and people-based work culture at the Food Bank and try as best as I can to keep the place from turning into a corporate work environment.

I head to the office at 8:30 am where my day is usually organized into 30 minute blocks. They’re usually spent in individual meetings with the heads of our eight departments talking about our social, strategic and operational goals.

We’ve been working full time at the office, at the executive level, for the past year. Employees at our offices who could WFH were sent home but our manufacturing operations, where we package boxes of food that are sent to those in need, could not be halted during the height of the pandemic. We had to make sure people we served felt safe staying at home which meant our operations kept running. Work at our sorting and packaging facilities, which employs about 75 full time workers and 150 temporary workers in times of need, was spread into multiple shifts and some of our production was outsourced to other factories — including our own newly constructed Badr City facility. Right now we’re working on a hybrid model where some office jobs have become strictly WFH and some others work on a rotation.

We’re now working at three times the scale of our pre-pandemic work. Before covid-19 we had a database with about 1 mn households that we offered services to. Around 130k of those were families that are unable to work for an income and rely on us for monthly support. During the pandemic that number shot up to some 5 mn families, which included day laborers and small scale shop owners, that suddenly had their incomes frozen. When we launched our online relief portal we had 350k requests come in in about five days.

We ratified our first strategic plan and our own Hunger Index last month which is the first impact-based plan for any civil society organization in the country. We developed the index as a quantitative model that aggregates our KPIs to evaluate progress on our four target projects. Households that are unable to maintain a stable income and require continuous support receive our assistance through our Food Security initiative. Our Prevention platform focuses on alleviating malnutrition-related diseases in children from pregnancy through the age of 5. Integrating people within our end-to-end supply chain, as producers or distributors, is the main focus of our Empowerment program. Elevate is our new research and development arm that will allow us to experiment with different models of support. We’re working with development partners at the Harvard Center CID, the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, MIT’s Poverty Action Lab and AUC statisticians and economists.

People tend to give a lot more when crises hit, and we’ve consistently seen this trend in Egypt. That means our capacity grows and our obligation to work at a higher level goes up with it. Close to 40% of the funding for our pandemic relief campaign came from private sector donations.

If you want to change people’s lives, it's essential to measure the impact of your work. It's a common mistake in the development sector to assume that impact is realized simply because services are delivered. The reality is that we usually have too little information to tell, which is why we’ll be collecting a lot more data going forward and conducting randomized control trials with people who receive our support.

I like to read for an hour before going to sleep at 10 pm. Most of my reading these days has been focused on development. I'm currently reading a book called Doing Good Better by William MackAskill. It talks about how good intentions are fundamental but not enough. It even makes the case that good intentions can be harmful if not carefully assessed. Another book I’d highly recommend is called Measuring What Matters by John Doerr. It talks about the evolution of the balanced scorecard system to a new goal setting strategy slowly gaining traction called OKRs (Objectives and Key Results).

I believe in a concept called a stress performance curve. The right amount of stress can really show you what you’re capable of. Too much of it can kill you, but too little stress can rob you of the chance to learn what you’re made of.

In a lot of ways my job doesn't really feel like work. It took me a year after I started working in development to become very aligned with my work, and I stopped looking at it like it was my job. Passion for this cause is really what drives me. I firmly believe that people need to be aligned with both the service culture and the particular cause at hand to really excel at what they’re doing.

March: Potential visit to Cairo by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

4 March (Thursday): The 14th OPEC and non-OPEC ministerial meeting.

1-5 March (Monday-Friday): Aswan Forum for Peace and Development will take place virtually.

8 March (Monday): The IDC Future of Work Egypt conference will be held virtually featuring experts from Egypt and Jordan.

9-11 March (Tuesday-Thursday): EduGate 2021 – Enter The Future conference, Kempinski Royal Maxim Hotel, Cairo, Egypt.

11-13 March (Thursday-Saturday): Cairo Fashion & Tex trade show, Cairo International Convention Centre, Cairo, Egypt

11-14 March (Thursday-Sunday): First edition of Afaq Real Estate Expo, Tolip El Galaa Hotel, Cairo, Egypt.

18 March (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

23 March (Tuesday): The second edition of the Egypt Retail Summit takes place at the Nile Ritz Carlton hotel.

25-27 March (Thursday-Saturday): The Real Gate real estate exhibition, Egyptian International Exhibition Center, Cairo.

29-30 March (Monday-Tuesday): Arab Federation of Exchanges Annual Conference 2021.

31 March (Wednesday): Deadline to visit the moroor and get an RFID sticker affixed to your car’s windshield — or run afoul of the Traffic Police.

1-3 April (Thursday-Saturday): HVAC-R Egypt Expo.

8-10 April (Thursday-Saturday): The TriFactory’s Endurance Festival at Somabay.

13 April (Monday): First day of Ramadan (TBC).

25 April (Sunday): Sinai Liberation Day.

29 April (Thursday): National holiday in observance of Sinai Liberation Day (TBC),

29 April (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

1 May (Saturday): Labor Day (national holiday).

2 May (Sunday): Easter Sunday.

3 May (Monday): Sham El Nessim.

13-15 May (Thursday-Saturday): Eid El Fitr (TBC).

25-28 May (Tuesday-Friday): The World Economic Forum annual meeting, Singapore.

1 June (Tuesday): The IMF will conduct a second review of targets set under the USD 5.2 bn standby loan approved in June 2020 (proposed date).

7 June-9 June (Monday-Wednesday): Egypt Petroleum Show, Egypt International Exhibition Center, New Cairo, Egypt.

17 June (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

24 June (Thursday): End of the 2020-2021 academic year (public schools).

26-29 June (Saturday-Tuesday): The Big 5 Construct Egypt, Cairo International Convention Center, Cairo, Egypt.

30 June (Wednesday): 30 June Revolution Day.

1 July: (Thursday): National holiday in observance of 30 June Revolution.

30 June- 15 July: National Book Fair.

1 July (Thursday): Large taxpayers that have not yet signed on on to the e-invoicing platform will suffer a host of penalties, including removal from large taxpayer classification, losing access to government services and business, and losing subsidies.

19 July (Monday): Arafat Day (national holiday).

20-23 July (Tuesday-Friday): Eid Al Adha (national holiday)

23 July (Friday): Revolution Day (national holiday).

5 August (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

9 August (Monday): Islamic New Year.

12 August (Thursday): National holiday in observance of the Islamic New Year.

16 September (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

30 September-2 October (Thursday-Saturday): Egypt Projects 2021 expo, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo, Egypt.

1 October (Friday): Expo 2020 Dubai opens.

6 October (Wednesday): Armed Forces Day.

7 October (Thursday): National holiday in observance of Armed Forces Day.

18 October (Monday): Prophet’s Birthday.

21 October (Thursday): National holiday in observance of the Prophet’s Birthday.

28 October (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

1-12 November (Monday-Friday): 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), Glasgow, United Kingdom.

13-17 December: United Nations Convention against Corruption, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

16 December (Thursday): The CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet to review interest rates.

27 June – 3 July 2022 (Monday-Sunday): World University Squash Championships, New Giza.

Note to readers: Some national holidays may appear twice above. Since 2020, Egypt has observed most mid-week holidays on Thursdays regardless of the day on which they fall and may also move those days to Sundays. We distinguish below between the actual holiday and its observance.