AM — Gulf sovereign funds are bidding for Egypt desalination plants

Good morning, dear readers: Ahead of the busy news flow heading towards us later this week, we have a short but sweet issue today, with news that that Gulf wealth funds are thinking of getting involved in Egypt’s upcoming desalination tenders as well as the latest installment of our ongoing CEO poll, featuring Travco Holiday’s Moataz Sedky.

WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY-

The Egyptian Private Equity Association is hosting a healthcare summit at the Semiramis Intercontinental Cairo. The event will be held under the auspices of the finance and planning ministries. You can check out the agenda here (pdf).

It’s the final day of the Nebu Expo for Gold and Jewelry at the Egypt International Exhibition Center, which brings together 35 international exhibitors and more than 500 buyers from the Middle East and Africa.

The transport ministers of Nile Basin countries will meet today to discuss preparing feasibility studies for the second phase of the Lake Victoria-Mediterranean river link, the Transport Ministry said yesterday. Representatives from the regional economic group Comesa and the African Union will also be in attendance.

THIS WEEK-

Will we finally close an IMF facility this week? The IMF’s executive board will discuss Egypt’s request for a new extended fund facility on Friday, 16 December. Egypt and the Fund reached a staff-level agreement for a USD 3 bn, 46-month loan program at the end of October, but the arrangement needs the sign off from the board before the loan can start to be disbursed.

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi will join other African leaders in Washington for the three-day US-Africa Leaders Summit which starts tomorrow. The event will be the first meeting of African heads of state and a US president in Washington since 2014 and the biggest international gathering in the city since before the covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

On the agenda: Russia’s war in Ukraine, climate change, trade and covid-19 among other things, according to the Associated Press. President Joe Biden will address a US-Africa business meeting, hold meetings with individual African heads of state and host a dinner at the White House. It is unknown whether El Sisi will hold talks with the US president during his stay in the US capital.

A play for Africa: As Russia and China strengthen their ties with the continent, the summit is part of the US’ play to increase its influence among African leaders following four years of disengagement under Donald Trump. The administration will offer a sweetener and declare support for making the African Union a permanent member of the G20, a long-standing ambition of African nations that the Washington Post suggests could help the US get them on side on issues such as the war in Ukraine and climate change.

PSA- Companies have until Thursday to register with the Tax Authority’s e-invoicing system. Only 150k companies had signed up to the new system ahead of the previous deadline of 15 December, according to the Tax Authority’s most recent tally at the end of November, which is well below a sought goal of 1 mn companies to register under the system.

REMEMBER- This deadline no longer applies to the self-employed: The Finance Ministry pushed the deadline for self-employed professionals — including doctors, pharmacists and lawyers — to 30 April 2023 after widespread opposition to the system.

IT’S FED WEEK- The Federal Reserve will start its two-day policy meeting tomorrow: Following several months of positive inflation data, the Fed is expected to raise interest rates by a smaller 50 bps, ending a string of four consecutive 75-bps hikes. That said, a lot will depend on tomorrow’s inflation release: analysts expect consumer price growth to have further slowed in November to 7.3%, allowing the Fed to ease the pace of its rate hikes. But a hotter-than-expected print could see the central bank go ahead with yet another super-sized hike.

Events in Washington could influence what happens in our neck of the woods next Thursday when the Central Bank of Egypt meets for its final policy meeting of 2022.

WORLD CUP- The World Cup semi-finals take place tomorrow and Wednesday (all times CLT):

• Argentina v Croatia tomorrow at 9pm
• Morocco v France on Wednesday at 9pm.

THE BIG STORIES ABROAD-

Signs of a diplomatic breakthrough in Ukraine? Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy held talks with the leaders of the US, Turkey and France yesterday in what Reuters notes is an unusual amount of diplomatic activity.

Scandal in Brussels: Four people including two MEPs have been charged by a Belgian judge and EUR 600k in cash has been seized by police as part of an investigation into allegations that Qatar has tried to bribe European parliamentarians, the Financial Times reports.

SIGNS OF THE TIMES-

• #1- Debt trouble for developing economies: Debt servicing payments for the world’s poorest countries are forecast to soar 35% y-o-y to USD 62 bn in 2022, the World Bank said in a report (pdf), in one of the highest annual increases in the past two decades. 2023 probably won’t be any easier, either, as higher interest rates, weaker currencies, and slower growth raise debt burdens further.
• #2- European tech companies lost more than USD 400 bn this year, with the combined value of public and private European tech companies falling to USD 2.7 tn from a USD 3.1 tn peak in 2021, according to VC firm Atomico.
• #3- SPAC-tacular downfall? Companies that went public via SPAC mergers during the 2020-2021 boom for the controversial listing mechanism are struggling to meet proper bookkeeping standards ahead of year-end earnings season, the Financial Times reports. Nearly half of a sample of companies that went public via SPAC in the US over the past two years admitted to “inefficient internal controls” in their quarterly accounting, according to research by Bedrock cited by the salmon-colored paper.

ICYMI-

Missed this week’s Inside Industry? In our weekly vertical exploring all things industry and manufacturing, we looked at the recent turmoil in the local gold market.

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CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

Enactus Egypt and the Citi Foundation launched the second phase of social entrepreneurship program Impact@Work, according to a press release (pdf). Some 54 university teams representing 9.7k students from various governorates will participate in the competition in July 2023 to demonstrate their efforts in generating a social impact based on their entrepreneurial ideas. The winning team will compete in the Enactus World Cup in the Netherlands in October 2023.

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

*** It’s Blackboard day: We have our weekly look at the business of education in Egypt, from pre-K through the highest reaches of higher ed.

In today’s issue: What are schools and universities doing to equip students with much-needed soft skills?

Gulf sovereign wealth funds are among 28 bidders vying for contracts to build the 21 desalination plants the government is tendering to the private sector, Atter Hannoura, director of the Finance Ministry’s PPP unit, told Enterprise. Subsidiaries of the wealth funds have submitted bids as part of consortiums with other local and foreign investors, with each consortium including at least one local firm, Hannoura said.

REFRESHER- Bidding closed last week on the 21 plants in the first USD 3 bn phase of the government’s USD 8 bn desalination program, with contracts set to be signed next year.

The first plants will be awarded early in 1Q 2023: Four plants will be awarded by mid-January or early February, Hannoura said. The plants are located on the Marsa Matrouh and Alamein coasts, he added.

Who exactly is bidding? Acwa Power, which is backed by Saudi sovereign wealth fund Public Investment Fund (PIF), has shown interest in the plants. While Hannoura could not disclose who the bidders were, Bloomberg Asharq yesterday quoted sources close to the matter as saying that PIF, Abu Dhabi’s ADQ, and the Qatari Investment Authority (QIA) are all in talks with the Sovereign Fund of Egypt (SFE) over a stake in the plants. Other interested firms not linked to Gulf funds include Hassan Allam Holding, Al Nowais, Schneider Electric, and a consortium made up of Metito Holdings, Scatec, and Orascom Construction.

The plants aren’t the only infrastructure being eyed by wealth funds in the Gulf: The three sovereign wealth funds have shown interest in some of our existing plants and ports. QIA is reportedly eyeing a USD 1 bn green hydrogen and ammonia plant and an investment in Damietta Port, as part of a USD 5 bn pledge to help shore up our economy. ADQ-owned Abu Dhabi Ports recently took a majority stake in a major local shipping and logistics firm, and will be developing and running a terminal at Safaga and Ain Sokhna ports. PIF is also reportedly eyeing three Siemens-built power plants as part of Riyadh’s USD 10 bn investment pledge.

Shop owners won’t be able to go legit without getting security clearance: Almost all shops required to go legit under the newly-introduced Public Shops Law won’t be granted licenses unless they receive security approvals, according to a decree published in the Official Gazette yesterday. The rules, issued by the Local Development Ministry, names 83 different commercial activities that will require the sign-off of security directorates before licenses are issued.

Reminder: The introduction of the Public Shops Law yesterday means that owners of informal shops now have one year to apply for commercial licenses or face fines and possible jail terms. Shop owners are required to apply to new licensing centers, which will process applications and grant licenses within 90 days. Licensing fees set by the law range from EGP 1k to EGP 100k depending on the size and location of the shop.

Among those needing security approval: Supermarkets, kiosks, coffeeshops, electronics shops, stationeries, hairdressers, gyms, hotels, nightclubs, jewelry shops, and many others.

The measures came in for criticism on the airwaves last night, with Rep. Freddy Elbaiady telling El Hekaya’s Amr Adib (watch, runtime: 11:44) that they would be counterproductive to persuading shop owners to apply for licenses. “The law and its executive bylaws are really good. The problem is related to the decree issued by the minister…this would ruin everything,” he said. The requirement would discourage young people from joining the formal economy due to the amount of time it could take to obtain licenses. “Such [security] approvals could take months…This is not the right time given the current economic conditions,” he said.

The ministry could rethink the move: Mohamed Al Fayoumi, spokesperson for the Higher Committee for Public Shops at the Local Development Ministry, sought to reassure viewers over the decree, telling Adib that the security requirement is not included in the bill’s executive regulations and is thus easy to amend. “I will contact the minister tomorrow and call for a meeting by the Higher Committee to review the measure,” he said, voicing agreement that some commercial activities should be excluded from the requirement.

The implementation of the law is also getting coverage from Al Hayah Al Youm (watch, runtime: 22:30) and Masaa DMC (watch, runtime: 13:36).

We recently had breakfast with 20 top CEOs to talk about why exports and FDI are key to our economy going forward. After reading our five-step recipe for turning Egypt into a global export hub and FDI magnet, every participating CEO has agreed to answer two questions on the record.

We’ve already heard from: GSK’s Mohamed El Dababy | McKinsey’s Jalil Bensouda | Somabay’s Ibrahim El Missiri | ALC Alieldean Weshahi & Partners’ Bahaa Alieldean | HSBC Egypt’s Todd Wilcox | Actis’ Sherif El Kholy | Amazon’s Omar El Sahy | BII’s Sherine Shohdy | Mansour Automotive’s Ankush Arora | Apex’s Tom Maher.

Moataz Sedky (LinkedIn) is the general manager of Travco Holidays, tour operator Travco Group’s outbound and domestic arm. Sedky has nearly 30 years of experience in business operations and has had a huge hand in launching the Travco Holidays brand, which offers pre-packaged holidays to tourists and corporate visitors, under the wider umbrella of Travco Group.

ENTERPRISE- Which industry would you put on a focused short list — and why?

MOATAZ SEDKY- Agriculture. We depend on food big time in our industry. Everybody talks about how lovely the food is in Greece — it’s all made in Greece. They don’t import any of it. Now if you look at the small breakfast buffets at Egyptian resorts, half of it is imported items. If I have a strong agriculture sector, this could form the backbone of the price structure of any resort.

Tourism is a giant industry, so we must also talk about other related industries that feed into it. Egypt has always been a cultural destination, especially for big spenders. Let’s not say that we have one third of the monuments of the world. We have sun for 12 months a year. We have 3k km of fine sand beaches, from Marsa Alam in the south to Marsa Matrouh in the north. We have beautiful water temperatures.

There are ways that we can improve ourselves, just by opening up doors for different types of tourism. We need to be an attractive destination for high-end events and conferences. Look at Spain, for example: 75% of people going to Barcelona go for business travel and business events, and 90% of global pharma events happen in Spain.

Our target for tourism should be to net USD 30 bn, not 30 mn guests. You might be giving a lot of support to charter flights coming from Europe to the Marsa Alam, Hurghada, and Sharm el Sheikh, and you’re helping travelers that come and spend very little money because the resorts are all inclusive. But how about open doors for people who are waiting to attend great events and who are willing to spend more?

Another part of it is technical and vocational training. Investment in this area is very important, especially when you see how many Egyptian technicians are working abroad in factories for brands like BMW in Germany. Targeting certain markets to penetrate them can unlock huge massive remittances when those talents end up transferring money from abroad into Egypt.

E- Why are exports and FDI the way forward?

MS– If you start with something like airports, you’ll see that here in Egypt, we have the lousiest duty-free shops. In Europe, right outside of the terminal, you find yourself in the middle of the duty-free shop. It's an amazing way to generate a lot of revenues. This is a money making machine that could unlock tns. It’s not about reinventing the wheel; it’s simply bringing the best guys who worked on the best and most attractive duty-free shops in the world to Egypt and giving them the chance to invest.

We also need laws that encourage investors. When Egyptian investors look to neighboring countries to buy land and manage properties, this signals to foreign investors that it’s not the right place to invest. When our local investors talk negatively about the investment climate in Egypt, this is a very alarming signal for outsiders not to come. If local investors are happy and foreign ones can see that, the least they will do is be interested in joining them.

Another step closer to BRICS bank membership: Ministers approved plans for Egypt to join the New Development Bank (NDB), a multilateral lender set up by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (the so-called BRICS), cabinet said following its weekly meeting on Wednesday.

What is the NDB? The USD 100 bn Shanghai-headquartered bank was launched in 2015 by the BRICS group of major emerging economies to fund infrastructure and development projects in member countries.

Egypt will become the bank’s ninth member: The NDB decided to admit Egypt as a member in December 2021, a few months after Bangladesh, the UAE, and Uruguay joined.

Why this matters: Membership will allow Egypt to access finance from the bank for development projects. How much capital Egypt will contribute to the bank and how many shares it will own remains unknown.

What’s next: MPs will discuss and vote on the proposed membership in the coming weeks.

Ibrahim Mahgoub was appointed chairman of the Egyptian Petrochemicals Holding Company (ECHEM) effective 13 December, the Oil Ministry said yesterday. Mahgoub succeeds Saad Helal who has retired. Mahgoub was formerly the chairman and managing director of the state-owned Misr Fertilizers Production Company (Mopco).

It was a mixed bag on the talk shows last night, with debate over security approvals required for shops under the Public Shops Law a big topic of debate. We have more in the morning’s news well, above.

A bumpy road for wildcat building reconciliation law? Draft legislation to speed up the building reconciliation process received attention on Kelma Akhira last night following a “heated” seven-hour debate among a joint parliamentary committee and the local development and housing ministers (watch, runtime: 13:05). Rep. Ahmed El Seginy, who heads the House Local Administration Committee, said that elements of the bill “clash” with the constitution, which requires the government to remove encroachments along the Nile River.

REMEMBER- The government has offered owners the option to pay to reconcile illegal buildings since 2020 but authorities have reportedly only responded to a fraction of the mns of requests received, while fines have gone unpaid. A lack of unified rules has meant that various governorates around the country have been implementing the law differently. The new draft bill, approved by the Senate, aims to address these issues,

Many illegal buildings are outside the scope of reconciliation: El Seginy said he was provided data that shows that 920k reconciliation requests were beyond scope of the original legislation. “We need to think about the box, we can’t just demolish nearly 1 mn[illegal] buildings,” he said.

Morocco’s progression to the World Cup semi-finals was still one of the most talked-about stories on the airwaves last night, with Kelma Akhira’s Lamees El Hadidi interviewing ex footballers and pundits on Morocco, Brazil’s dramatic loss to Croatia and others ahead of the semi-finals later this week (watch, runtime: 5:42 | watch, runtime: 2:28). Ala Mas’ouleety also took note, with coverage on predictions for the semi finals and Morocco’s superb performance. Football pundits see a difficult game between Morocco and France, yet “impossible is nothing” given Morocco’s performance (watch, runtime: 4:31).

It’s a slow morning in the foreign press:

• A race through history: Nearly 4k runners from dozens of countries competed in a half marathon against the backdrop of the Great Pyramids of Giza on Saturday. (Xinhua)
• The National interviews Egyptian-British heart surgeon Magdy Yacoub on his storied career in healthcare and healthcare education.

CONSTRUCTION-

Egypt-based Engineering Consultants Group (ECG) was awarded a contract to design a multi-purpose hall for Saudi mega city Neom, according to its website.

COMMODITIES-

Bidding in cooking complex tender wraps: Seven local and international companies bid in the Supply Ministry’s tender for three new cooking oil complexes, Al Borsa reported Maj. Gen. Ahmed Hassanien, chair of the state-owned Holding Company for Food Industries, as saying yesterday. The ministry expects to award contracts within the next month for the three complexes in Alexandria, Sohag, and Sadat City, which are worth a combined USD 321 mn.

ICYMI- We took a deep dive on the push to localize vegetable oil production in our weekly Inside Industry vertical.

DEFENSE-

French defense giant Thales could cooperate with military companies: President Abdel Fattah El Sisi held talks with Thales CEO and chairman Patrice Caine yesterday over possible cooperation with two companies owned by the Egyptian military, according to an Ittihadiya statement out yesterday.

INVESTMENT-

Global tyre manufacturer Prometeon Tyre will invest EUR 30 mn to upgrade its factory in Alexandria, it said in a statement (pdf) on Sunday. The money will raise production at the factory, the statement said, without providing a figure. It currently has an annual production capacity of 1.1 mn tyres. The company said that a separate EUR 25 mn has already been partly invested in R&D in Turkey, Italy and Egypt, but didn’t disclose how much was allocated to Egypt.

Two mn sqm of land is on offer to industrial investors: The Industrial Development Authority (IDA) has launched the fourth phase of an online industrial investment map offering more than 1k land plots to local and foreign investors, it said in a statement yesterday. Bidders can take out the tender conditions booklet for the plots starting Thursday 15 December until Tuesday 10 January, the IDA said, adding it would continue receiving bids until Sunday 15 January.

M&A WATCH-

It’s official- GB Auto has sold a 7.5% stake in MNT to Chimera: GB Auto has finalized the sale of a 7.5% stake in MNT Investments to Abu Dhabi-based investment firm Chimera Investments, GB Auto said in a bourse disclosure (pdf). The GB Capital subsidiary now owns a 49.5% stake in the Netherlands-based payments company.

ICYMI- GB Auto’s board in November greenlit the sale to Chimera for USD 60 mn with an earnout component that could reach USD 71.3 mn — around a 15.6% premium to a fair value study that valued the company at c. EGP 17 bn. The sale is part of a larger transaction that will see Chimera acquire a 21.7% stake in MNT, with the remaining 14.2% being sold by other unnamed investors in MNT.

TRADE-

Dubai International Chamber has opened a representative office in Cairo to bolster trade between the two countries, it said in a statement (pdf) yesterday. The strategic move comes as part of the Dubai Global initiative launched over the summer by the emirate to lure FDIs and new trade opportunities.

Big investments at the China-Arab summit: Some USD 50 bn in investment agreements were signed during Xi Jinping’s visit to Saudi Arabia last week, Saudi Investment Minister Khalid Al Falih told Bloomberg, remaining tightlipped on the details. He said that the agreements included both the private and public sectors, yet did not specify whether the provided investment figure involves attending Arab countries or just Saudi.

We know some of the details about Saudi-China agreements: In a sign of warming ties between the two countries, Xi and Saudi King Salman inked a "comprehensive strategic partnership agreement" that will “firmly support each other’s core interests” as well as a

number of business deals, including one that could expand Huawei’s role in the kingdom, and a USD 1.5 bn MoU between Acwa Power and Power China. Xi also said Beijing could begin purchasing oil and gas in CNY, a key step towards internationalizing its currency and weakening the role of the USD in global trade.

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Saudi Arabia is on track to be the fastest-growing G20 economy this year after beating expectations to post 8.8% growth in 3Q 2022, the country’s statistics agency said yesterday. The oil exporter said last week that it had raised its full-year GDP forecast to 8.5% and reported its first budget surplus in almost a decade. Saudi Arabia now expects to generate a SAR 16 bn (USD 4.3 bn) surplus next year, almost double previous estimates of SAR 9 bn, according to its latest fiscal outlook (pdf).

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The tanker traffic jam at the Turkish straits is beginning to clear: Oil tankers that have been held up at the Turkish straits on the back of a price cap on Russian oil are now being allowed through, Bloomberg reported, citing a shipping official with knowledge of the matter. Ankara had been demanding that insurers of tankers transiting the straits provide proof of cover before the US and UK pushed it to change tack. Some 19 tankers were waiting to be cleared to pass through Bosphorus and Dardanelles yesterday, down from 27 tankers a day earlier.