Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund could purchase a stake in Juhayna

Good morning, and a very happy Thursday to our readers: We have a packed issue to close out the week this morning, so let’s get to it …

It’s PMI day: May’s purchasing managers’ index figures for Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE land this morning at 6:15 CLT. The survey claims Egypt’s non-oil private sector continued to face uncertainty in April, with declines in demand, production and employment keeping activity in contraction for a fifth straight month.

Other key indicators to keep an eye out for in coming weeks:

• Foreign reserves figures for May will be out early next week.
• May inflation data will be released next week.
• Interest rates: The Central Bank of Egypt will meet Thursday, 17 June to review rates.

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THE BIG STORY INTERNATIONALLY THIS MORNING- The end is almost certainly nigh for Bibi: Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-years at the helm of the Israel government could be over as a loose coalition of opponents agreed to form a coalition last night that would remove him from power. Liberal opposition leader Yair Lapid told President Reuven Rivlin that he had the numbers to finally form a government following four indecisive elections, paving the way for a parliamentary vote next week.

Who would replace him and what would this mean for Egypt? Lapid would share the prime ministership with his main partner, the far-right ultranationalist leader Naftali Bennett, who would take the position for the first two years before handing it over to Lapid. The coalition itself is a motley crew of liberals, Islamists and right-wing settlers: a mix of opposing parties that makes predicting a policy direction at this stage almost impossible.

Plus, this thing isn’t quite over yet: With the coalition having a tiny parliamentary majority, Netanyahu still has a hope of thwarting his ouster, likely appealing to Bennett’s far-right Yamina party to vote against it, which would send the country into a fifth election in two years.

This is front page news everywhere this morning: From the New York Times and the AP to the Wall Street Journal and Reuters.

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

• Colliers international is now more hopeful about the Red Sea’s tourism prospects for 2021: The real estate services company now expects full-year hotel occupancy rates in Sharm El Sheikh to reach 42%, up from 81% in 2020, while hotels in Hurghada are expected to see 46% occupancy, nearly double last year’s rate
• A new basket of structural reforms are in the pipeline: Priority industries include “tech-intensive manufacturing,” agriculture, and communications and IT, as well as financial inclusion, agriculture, and vocational education.
• Egypt is expected to (almost) match its pre-pandemic growth level in this final quarter of the state’s current fiscal year: The economy is penciled in to grow 5.2-5.5% this quarter, having grown at a 2.9% clip in 3Q2020-2021 and 2% the previous quarter.

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CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

The FIG World Challenge Cup in Artistic Gymnastics for men and women will kick off in Egypt on Thursday and run until Sunday.

The British Egyptian Business Association will hold a virtual conversation with Oil Minister Tarek El Molla on 7 June to discuss the sector’s achievements. You can register through this link.

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

ADQ Holding looking at a stake in Juhayna? Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund ADQ Holding is mulling the acquisition of an undisclosed stake in Egyptian dairy giant Juhayna, Bloomberg reports, citing unnamed sources with direct knowledge of the matter. The discussions are still at a preliminary stage and there’s no certainity the fund will go ahead with the transaction, sources said.

ADQ would pick up Juhayna at a sharp discount to where it was trading just five months ago: The company’s share price has plunged more than 40% since mid January, handing it a market cap of less than EGP 4 bn compared to EGP 6.7 bn earlier this year. Shares in the company suffered a huge 17% intraday plunge in February after CEO Seif Thabet was detained in an investigation into alleged financing of terror groups (unrelated to his role at the company), just a few months after his father was detained amid similar allegations. Juhayna’s shares have been under pressure for the past two years, and are now worth less than a third of their peak in 2019.

Juhayna is also facing issues with the EGX after failing to report its 2020 financials. The bourse has moved the company to its “D-list” until it receives its annual accounts, meaning investors cannot buy its stock on margin and it won’t be on the list of stocks in which same-day trading is permitted. The company says it hopes to submit its financials by mid-June.

ADQ has been on an acquisition spree as of late, acquiring 100% of Amoun Pharma in April in a USD 740 mn transaction, and investing USD 1 bn last year in retailer LuLu’s Egypt expansion. It’s also looking at investments in Egyptian meat and poultry business Atyab and gas stations operator Wataniya. Still, having amassed an estimated USD 110 bn in assets since its founding in 2018, the fund wants to make significant new investments over the next five years, CEO Mohamed Hassan Alsuwaidi told Bloomberg last month.

Revised terms for the license to establish Egypt’s second major tobacco company have been handed to four local tobacco companies, according to a document seen by Reuters. The conditions booklet for the tender — which is set to end Eastern Tobacco’s historical monopoly over the sector — has been redrafted by the government more than two months after several tobacco players filed a formal complaint asking for new, more competitive terms. The government had been drawing up the new rules for the tender as of late April.

What’s new? The new terms slash the number of cigarettes the company will have to produce to 1 bn each year, down from 15 bn in the original tender. The government has also reversed its position on future licenses, and has now agreed to issue more a decade following the tender.

It’s not known how authorities have tackled some of the other sticking points:

The most controversial aspect of the original tender was the preferential treatment it would hand to Eastern, allowing it to compete unfairly against the new company. Not only would the new license have to hand a 24% stake to Eastern, but it would be forced to sell popular brands at a price 50% higher than Eastern, effectively shutting them out of the market. The four companies also alleged that the terms breached antitrust rules, claiming that the new company would assume monopoly power over e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products.

Who’s in? The Industrial Development Authority invited JTI-Nakhla Tobacco, British American Tobacco Egypt, Imperial Tobacco and Al Mansour International Distribution Company to bid for the new license in March. It remains unclear which companies will submit bids based on the new terms.

The deadline for lodging bids is now set on 1 August, according to the newswire.

Some 2.5 mn people — 2.4% of Egypt’s population — have received at least one dose of a covid-19 vaccine, Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly said at a press conference yesterday. This is a 400k increase from the 2.1 mn figure Cabinet Spokesperson Nader Saad reported last week, and a near-1-mn increase from a 1.6 mn figure announced last week by Ayman Sebae, a health researcher for the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. The government is aiming to vaccinate 40% of the population by the end of the year, Madbouly said, a figure slightly below the one given by Saad earlier this week, who said that half the country’s population would have received their shots before the year is out.

For that to happen, people need to start registering: Some 6 mn people have so far registered to get vaccinated since registration was opened to the public in March, Madbouly said yesterday. This amounts to just 6% of the population.

The Health Ministry reported 951 new covid-19 infections yesterday, down from 956 the day before. Egypt has now disclosed a total of 264,557 confirmed cases of covid-19. The ministry also reported 42 new deaths, bringing the country’s total death toll to 15,178.

We’re past the third wave thanks to the precautionary measures the government took during Eid El Fitr period, covid-19 task force member Mohamed Nady told DMC (watch, runtime 13:34). Daily infection rates have fallen by more than 20% from their recent peak while the daily death toll is also starting to slow.

The first batch of homemade shots of China’s Sinovac vaccine should be produced by the end of this month, the Health Ministry said in a statement yesterday. The shots will then be shipped to the Egyptian Drug Authority and a Chinese lab team for a final thorough analysis before their rollout into the market.

The announcement comes a day after the World Health Organization (WHO) approved the emergency listing of the Sinovac jab, which Egypt cleared for use in April.

Need a refresher on the differences between the Sinovac and Sinopharm jabs? We’ve got you covered.

We are also expecting to receive 2k liters of Sinovac’s active ingredients this month to manufacture the expected 3 mn doses, after having received the first batch of raw materials in May.

We should be getting Sinovac and Sinopharm doses by mid June: A 1 mn-dose shipment of China's Sinovac vaccine will arrive over two equal batches on 5 and 16 June, with an additional 1 mn doses of Sinopharm slated for delivery on 13 June. Health Minister Hala Zayed said during a cabinet meeting. The minister did not give any further details on when the new 1.9 mn-jab batch of Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine is expected, though earlier reports had said the first week of June.

Egypt now has 408 state-run vaccination centers across the country now administering the vaccine, up from the 403 facilities announced in late May, the ministry said.

Direct Russian flights to Red Sea destinations may resume in the “near future,” once Russian authorities add the “finishing touches” to the plan, which will finally end the six-year flight ban, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said at a press conference yesterday, Tass reports.

We’re hoping that “near future” means “June”, as Putin originally agreed with President Abdel Fattah El Sisi in April.

But at the moment the best we can hope for is a summer return: The minister did give a hint that we could be looking at the plans being delayed during the presser. When asked by reporters whether flights will return in the summer, Bogdanoff replied with “I think so.”

The nation’s talking heads might have gotten a bit carried away with this last night, taking this to mean “Flights are returning this summer.” Al Hayah Al Youm (watch, runtime: 11:16) and Masaa DMC (watch, runtime: 9:06) both had the story last night.

But this is far from certain, especially given Putin’s press secretary said on Tuesday that no date has been set for their return.In past years we’ve seen repeated delays in the resumption of direct flights to the Red Sea, initially due to security concerns and more recently because of a resurgence of covid-19 cases.

Egypt is anxious to finally put the 2015 Metrojet crash behind it and welcome Russians back to its shores, not least because of the blow suffered by its tourism sector due to covid. It has been estimated that Russian tourists alone used to bring USD 3.5 bn in revenues.

Corona tax freeze for tourism companies: Companies in the struggling tourism sector are being given some breathing room after the government agreed to postpone payment of the 1% tax on salaries introduced last year to shore up government finances through the pandemic. Tourism companies will not have to pay the tax until 31 October under a decision made by the cabinet during its weekly meeting yesterday, a move designed to ease financial pressure on the sector which has been one of the hardest hit by covid-19. Both public and private sector companies have been required to pay the temporary 12-month tax since last summer, the proceeds of which will be used to protect the country from the ongoing pandemic emergency.

The waiver comes as part of a raft of measures and initiatives by the state to support our tourism industry. The CBE last year increased funding to support the tourism sector to EGP 50 bn, allowing more companies in the sector to access soft loans to renovate and upgrade tourism infrastructure. The central bank cut interest rates by a combined 400 bps last year to help struggling businesses cope with the repercussions of covid-19.

ALSO FROM THE CABINET MEETING-

Some EGP 50 mn will be used to purchase extra medical-grade oxygen to shore up the country’s supplies, according to a decision greenlit yesterday. Questions have been raised over supplies after several deaths in a Sharqia hospital earlier this year were alleged to have been caused by an oxygen shortage. The government has been working to secure more supplies, saying in April that it now has 2.2 mn liters on hand, up from 1.2 mn in February. It wants to increase this further to 3 mn liters in anticipation of further waves of the virus putting pressure on the country’s healthcare system.

BalancED is setting up a K-12 international school in Madinet Nasr Housing and Development’s (MNHD) Taj City in East Cairo at an investment cost of EGP 500 mn, Business Development Director Ali Bakry told us. Under an agreement with MNHD, BalancED will purchase land in the residential compound to set up a branch of Asten College, which will be owned, managed and operated by the education company, Bakry said.

Palm Hills out, Madinet Nasr in: The school was originally been planned to be set up in partnership with Palm Hills Development, but talks that began in 2017 later broke down.

The company is planning to invest EGP 1.2 bn by 4Q2021, most of which will be deployed in the flagship school and an acquisition of an existing unnamed school expected to close in September, Bakry said. The remainder, less than 10%, will be used to fund collaborations to host seminars and education and training programs with each of Vodafone Egypt’s CSR arm, leadership training company FranklinCovey, and the University of Indiana.

Where’s the money coming from? The company plans to finance the new big-ticket investments through a mixture of self-financing (40%), bank loans (35%), and raising equity (25%), Bakry said.

Nine proposed PPP infrastructure projects have been given preliminary approval by the cabinet, spokesperson Nader Saad said in a statement yesterday. Five of the proposed projects are a combination of dry ports and logistics centers, designed to reduce traffic through seaports and cut costs. This includes the Tenth of Ramadan dry port under a revenue-sharing agreement with some private players. A formal proposal for the latter project will be presented to the Cabinet during its upcoming meeting, Saad said. The projects also include new dry ports in Beni Suef, Sadat City and Borg El Arab, a logistics zone alongside the Sixth of October dry port, an expansion of the Alexandria and Dekheila ports and a new cargo terminal at Safaga.

Owners of rural properties that were found to be in violation of the building code will be able to legalize their properties more quickly and receive access to basic utilities after the government decided to simplify the time-consuming settlement process, the cabinet announced yesterday.

The status quo: Currently, the government doesn’t allow property owners to start paying reconciliation fees and legalizing their buildings before the information they submitted to the government has been verified. The process has quickly become slow and cumbersome, with mns people left with buildings in legal limbo and without access to basic utilities as authorities vet every file.

What’s changing? Officials will no longer visit every building to verify information filed with the settlement requests. Instead, the government will accept their requests and allow them to start paying their fees and legalizing their properties before checks are carried out, Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly said in a press conference yesterday. The government will work to check the accuracy of each individual file over the next three years, and those who provided incorrect information will have their building’s legal status revoked, he said.

Caveat: The decision does not apply to illegal buildings on state-owned land, the cabinet said.

And why? The government wants to facilitate the process of legalizing the status of those living in underserved rural areas in order to provide them with access to utility services through its multi-bn EGP Decent Life Initiative.

Background: The government is on track to settle as many as 2.8 mn building code violations after it allowed the owners of those properties to pay a so-called “reconciliation fee” as part of a nationwide campaign to crack down on illegal construction. Families living in those homes were forced to file in requests and make payments of EGP 50 per sqm to get their properties legitimized by no later than the end of March. Processing those requests would then have required visits from state officials to validate the sizes of mns of homes.

The American University in Cairo (AUC) recently appointed Shahira Zeid (bio) and Wael Bayazid (bio) as new members of its board of trustees, according to a statement (pdf). Zeid acts as the chairperson of Maridive and Oil Services, and is also chair of MZ Investments. She has been named by Forbes Middle East as one of the most powerful businesswomen in the region, and was selected as one of the top 50 businesswomen in Egypt in 2015. Bayazid has extensive experience in the banking and financial sector, and has served as the Managing Director and partner of global investment firm the Carlyle Group since 1996.

Mohamed Bedeir (LinkedIn) has resigned as the CEO and managing director of Bank Audi Egypt, while Bank ABC Egypt Chairman Akram Tinawi (bio) also stepped down on Wednesday, according to the local press. Both executives are set to join other banking institutions in Egypt, which they’ll be announcing of “at a later time,” the newspaper said. The move comes less than a month after First Abu Dhabi Bank’s (FAB) acquired Audi’s Egypt unit, while Bank ABC inches closer to the acquisition of a 99.42% stake in Blom Bank Egypt.

Saad Megahed Al Rajhi has been appointed as the new non-executive chairman of the state-owned Metallurgical Industries Holding (MIH) for a three-year term, replacing Mohamed Al Saadawi, who will become the acting executive managing director, the Public Enterprises Ministry said in a statement (pdf). Al Rajhi is an engineering professor at Cairo University and holds a doctorate in metallurgy from the University of London.

Last night got us all nostalgic for September 2020 when building code violations were all anybody wanted to talk about on the airwaves. The government’s decision to approve settlement requests for people in rural areas without verifying their information first was headline news on the nation’s talk shows last night. As many as 1.6 mn building code violations in rural areas are already on track to be settled with the government, which their application had been filed by their owners by the end-of-March deadline set earlier, Cabinet spokesperson Nader Saad told Yahduth Fi Masr’s Sherif Amer (watch, runtime: 5:07). Local Development Ministry spokesperson Khaled Kassem shared a similar estimate on Ala Masouleety (watch, runtime: 3:50), and recapped the news with Amer (watch: 4:15). The government had earlier moved to reduce fines in rural areas to EGP 50 per sqm to ease the burden on owners there, whose income barely meets their necessities, Saad said.

Madbouly’s target to vaccinate 40% of the population by 2022 also got coverage. Madbouly’s national target comes as the country aims to manufacture two vaccines here at home, including China’s Sinovac vaccine — the first batch of which is expected to be produced by the end of this month, according to the health minister. Abiding by the current preventive measures remains paramount, even by those who received the vaccine, presidential health advisor Mohamed Awad Tag Eldin said in a phone-in to Yahduth Fi Masr (watch, runtime: 5:34).

And there was still time for GERD: News of Ethiopia’s plans to set up a military base in the Red Sea was covered on Ala Masouleety, which questioned whether there would be a movement against Addis Ababa’s unfriendly intentions, especially given its recent announcement of planning to build more than 100 dams across the country (watch, runtime: 10:51 | 3:51).

There’s not a huge amount going on in the foreign press this morning: The Atlantic Council looks at Egypt’s growing water insecurity while AFP talks to Farida Ramadan, an Egyptian transgender woman in her fifties, who talks about the legal and social issues she has faced throughout her life.

Breakthrough in Iran nuclear talks next week? The latest round of talks between world powers over restoring the 2015 nuclear pact appears to have made progress, paving the way for an agreement to possibly be struck at the coming round of talks starting next week, according to the EU’s envoy who chaired talks in Vienna, Reuters reported.

Or not …: The UK, France and Germany cast doubt on whether an agreement is imminent, saying that while progress had been made this week, “the most difficult decisions lie ahead,” the newswire reports. Officials are expected to resume talks next Thursday, 10 June, after adjourning the fifth round of talks yesterday, though the date has not yet been confirmed, two diplomats told the newswire.

Nils Bachtler, CEO of Orascom Financial Holding (OFH): 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 Nils Bachteler, CEO of Orascom Financial Holding (LinkedIn). Edited excerpts from our conversation:

My name is Nils Bachtler, I’m a corporate guy with an entrepreneurial spirit. I'm always looking for new openings and how companies I'm involved with can do things a little differently and eventually become market leaders. I'm a relatively quiet person and If I’m not working I’m spending time with my family.

Professionally, I’m the CEO of Orascom Financial Holding (OFH) which is a holding company established in January 2021 after we decided to demerge from Orascom Investment Holding and have a specialized entity focused on financial services. Right now, as the first CEO of OFH, I'm responsible for setting up new ventures, business development, managing the team and dealing with regulatory issues.

The entire process of setting up the company took place during the pandemic. That meant a lot of the communication with the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA), legal teams, the investment bank and lawyers abroad was done via Zoom and email. Having few physical meetings was actually part of the challenge of getting such a big transaction completed. And on a personal level, you also had to deal with a lot of people close to you getting sick. My entire family (my wife and two kids) contracted covid in September so I had to go into isolation at home for three weeks while still running everything from a distance. Having said that, I think the pandemic has proven that we used to waste a lot of time in meetings. Looking back I think our productivity and efficiency actually increased.

We’ve technically been back to the office since September with a flexible work schedule. Almost everyone is here everyday though, so I'd say we’re 98% in the office. We’re not having big in-person meetings, that's all still on Zoom and Teams. The OFH team currently consists of about 7-8 people, which is still a very small team relative to the size of the entity and our balance sheet, but we’re trying to stay that way for now. Having a small team can be very efficient. It's comforting to know that things can be done away from the office and I'm very happy about it. A hybrid model is likely to stick with us in the future.

OFH is a listed entity operating like a startup. Although we’re highly regulated as an entity we want to employ the creativity and agility that a startup enjoys. We currently have two major investments in listed financial services companies and our own digital payments company. One part of my day is following up, strategizing and helping those companies reach their targets. The other part involves a lot of research, looking for new opportunities and how we can expand our portfolio of assets.

We’re targeting becoming the leading fintech player in the market, so we’re setting up new startups in the fintech space and have already announced the launch of a digital payments company in partnership with Excel where we have more of a hands-on approach in terms of building a business, hiring teams, setting strategy and developing product roadmaps.

Getting into financial services and fintech specifically, was a pre-pandemic decision that covid-19 accelerated. Seeing how the market was reacting and how regulators responded to the changes unleashed by the pandemic encouraged us to speed up the process. But I think the appetite was there from the very beginning because of the size of Egypt’s population and its demographics. Egypt has been a very attractive market, regardless of the pandemic.

My day usually starts at 6 am: I spend the first 30 minutes having coffee while going through emails and reading the news, which is just about everything including Enterprise. I work out five days a week from 7-8 am and try to make it into the office by 9:30 am at the latest. I spend the first hour and a half getting things done on my own, catching up on more email and planning my day. I like to set aside at least 20 minutes to plan my day with a to-do list. Starting 11 am I get into the daily grind of meetings, calls and ad hoc issues that need my attention. I usually leave the office between 6 and 7 pm so I have enough time to spend an hour or two with my two kids before they go to bed. At least twice a week I like to attend their swimming or football practice. Once they’re asleep I have about an hour and a half to wind down in front of the TV or spend time talking to my wife.

Weekends are entirely dedicated to the family, if there’s no work. My involvement with companies based in Europe sometimes means I need to take meetings on Fridays but usually it never takes up more than two-three hours of my day.

Lately I've been trying to read more business books. Blue Ocean Strategy is a good one that gives you guidelines on how to think and maneuver through business challenges. Bn USD Whale by Bradley Hope and Tom Wright is another interesting one. As for TV series I prefer to watch things that you can switch off to: Game of Thrones, Suits and Seinfeld are some personal favorites.

The best piece of advice I was given, at the very start of my career, has been “have patience.” By nature I'm a very impatient person, not rushing things especially in my work and life is something very important I need to better incorporate into my life.

I'm looking forward to soon resume spending my days without a mask and travelling. I'm half German, half Egyptian and my family lives in Germany at the moment. So travelling and reconnecting with my second home would be the priority on the personal side.

3-6 June (Thursday-Monday): Egypt is hosting the FIG World Challenge Cup in Artistic Gymnastics.

7 June (Monday): British Egyptian Business Association hosts an event featuring Oil Minister Tarek El Molla.

14 June (Monday): Egypt Green Economy Forum.

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

17-20 June (Thursday-Sunday): The International Exhibition of Materials and Technologies for Finishing and Construction (Turnkey Expo), Cairo International Conference Center.

20 June (Sunday): Ismailia Economic Court to hold hearing on Ever Given compensation case.

22-27 June (Tuesday-Sunday): The CIB PSA World Tour Finals for 2020-2021 will take place in Cairo.

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. The Big 5 Egypt Impact Awards will also be taking place at the event on 27 June.

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

30 June (Wednesday): 30 June Revolution Day.

30 June- 15 July: National Book Fair.

July + August: Thanaweya Amma exams take place.

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

1 July (Thursday): Large taxpayers that have not yet signed 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.

1 July (Thursday): Businesses importing goods at seaports will need to file shipping documents and cargo data digitally to the Advance Cargo Information (ACI) system.

15 June (Saturday): EGX-listed will have to complete filing their financial disclosures for the period ended 31 March.

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

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

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

2-4 August (Monday-Wednesday): Egypt is hosting the Africa Food Manufacturing exhibition at the Egypt International Exhibition Center.

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.

12-15 September (Sunday-Wednesday): Sahara Expo: the 33rd International Agricultural Exhibition for Africa and the Middle East.

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.

30 September-8 October (Thursday-Friday): The Cairo International Fair, Cairo International Conference 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.

12-14 October (Tuesday-Thursday): Mediterranean Offshore Conference, Alexandria, Egypt.

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.

1-3 November (Monday-Wednesday): Egypt Energy exhibition on power and renewable energy, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo, Egypt.

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

29 November-2 December (Monday-Thursday): Egypt Defense Expo.

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.

14-16 February 2022 (Monday-Wednesday): Egypt Petroleum Show, Egypt International Exhibition Center, New Cairo, Egypt.

1H2022: The World Economic Forum annual meeting, location TBD.

May 2022: Investment in Logistics Conference, Cairo, Egypt.

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.