TL;DR

All eyes are on today’s CBE currency auction as Tarek Amer assumes governorship of the Central Bank of Egypt (What We’re Tracking, Speed Round)

Afreximbank proposes USD 1 bn facility to the CBE to improve FX liquidity on Wednesday (Speed Round)

El Sisi reassures business in speech marking launch of Suez Canal Area Development Project; Ahmed Darwish will head General Authority for Suez Canal Economic Zone (Speed Round)

Are Arab-Israeli ties thawing? Israel to open “diplomatic mission” in Abu Dhabi. (Speed Round)

Rail News: China Harbour makes preliminary offer on high-speed Cairo-Alex link; Consortium of Bombardier, Orascom Construction and Arab Contractors seems to have inside track on Six October-Cairo Monorail (Speed Round)

200 MW Gabal El Zeit wind farm launches today, but there’s no international arbitration or FX guarantees on FIT contracts (Energy)

Egypt’s healthcare subsidies are pro-rich, do not significantly help the poor, an international study finds (Healthcare + Education)

By the Numbers + A deep dive into Orascom Constructions 9M2015 results

WHAT WE’RE TRACKING TODAY

The EGP remained steady on Thursday at the last auction before Tarek Amer took over as governor of the Central Bank of Egypt. All eyes are now on today’s sale, the first since Amer and his new board of directors took charge of Egypt’s monetary policy.

WHAT WE’RE TRACKING THIS WEEK

The EBRD is hosting a forum titled Supporting SMEs in the Automotive Sector in Egypt at the Conrad Hotel, Cairo on Monday, 30 November.

426 candidates will vie for 213 individual seats in runoffs this Tuesday and Wednesday for 13 governorates, including Cairo, North and South Sinai, and Menoufiya. Egyptians abroad will start voting in runoff polls on Monday. Final results for the second and final round of parliamentary elections will be announced on Thursday by the High Elections Committee.

ON THE HORIZON

The Markit / Emirates NBD Purchasing Managers Indexes for Egypt, the UAE and Saudi are due out a week from tomorrow (Monday, 7 December). The full calendar for upcoming PMI releases is here.

The U.S. Federal Reserve will meet on 15-16 December 2016. It is widely expected to raise interest rates for the first time since June 2006. The New York Times, believe it or not, has a pretty solid piece on why December is looking to be the Fed allows rates to rise.

LAST NIGHT’S TALK SHOWS

It was an incredibly slow night for political talk shows. Ibrahim Eissa was off and Lamees El Hadidy was reduced to analyzing the near-entirety of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi’s televised speech during the inauguration ceremony of the Port Said logistical project on Saturday. She then sat down with some of the candidates competing in the runoffs from the second round of parliamentary elections.

Coming down from his on-air spat with Youm7 editor Khaled Salah, with whom Amr Adeeb has since reconciled (view tweet in Arabic), Adeeb was back on Saturday night with some humor that was a little more confusing than usual. Adeeb expressed his support for the government’s attempt to push forward with projects and tourism despite the terrorism facing Egypt by sarcastically saying that if he were president, he wouldn’t be trying to do anything, and if anyone asked him he would simply throw up his hands and say he was busy fighting terrorism. The only problem with his odd defense was that at certain points, as sometimes happens with Adeeb, it becomes difficult to tell if he’s still kidding, and or it seems he inadvertently ends up proving the point he is parodying.

As an example: “I wouldn’t be trying to finish the 1.5 mn acre reclamation project. Nobody asked for it. It wasn’t on anybody’s mind,” which is actually pretty much true, leaving one wondering what point it is he was actually trying to make. This confusion further compounded when he extended his point to include tourism minister Hisham Zaazou, saying, “He can just say ‘What are we supposed to do? There’s terrorism.’ El Sisi could have said the same as the tourism minister.” While he likely didn’t mean it, Adeeb here may come off as seeming to say that Zaazou in fact did say that he is unable to perform his job due to security concerns over terrorism, when Zaazou said nothing of the sort, and with Adeeb likely trying to make the opposite point.

The only noteworthy quote from the entire, oddly-worded segment was his using of Belgium as a verb. “Belgium’s tourism minister could claim the same thing [that he’s unable to bring in tourists due to threats over terrorism]. Belgium is a tourist destination. People go and buy diamonds and chocolate and get Belgiumed and have fun and go home.”

** SHARE ENTERPRISE WITH A FRIEND **

Enterprise is available without charge — just visit our English or Arabic subscription page, depending on which edition you would like to receive. We give you just about everything you need to know about Egypt, in your inbox Sunday through Thursday before 7am CLT (8am for Arabic), and all we ask for is your name, email address and where you hang your hat during business hours.

SPEED ROUND

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi launched phase one of the Suez Canal Area Development Project yesterday. The project focuses on a side canal in East Port Said that will be finished in two years, with the president announcing the compressed project timeline live on national television.

El Sisi spoke about a wide range of subjects including the war on terror, corruption, and the price of basic food commodities. The most important message El Sisi sent was meant to reassure the business community. “I hear that some Egyptian businessmen are worried about investing in Egypt. What are you worried about?” He said encouraging businessmen to invest and build their homeland. “The law governs the relationship between the business community and state authorities. These authorities shall not act beyond their legal jurisdiction and the parliament will have full oversight on all of us.”

Moving back to mega projects, El Sisi revealed further details about the 1.5 mn acre reclamation project, saying it will be inaugurated in a matter of days with a 10,000-acre model farm in Farafra. He also pointed that the government’s vast appetite for infrastructure projects was a tough but, ultimately, correct choice. The president noted that the the second phase of the National Roads Project has already started and will focus on linking various industrial zones to Egyptian ports and airports that are currently under construction and development.

El Sisi also issued a decree appointing former cabinet member Dr. Ahmed Darwish as the head of the General Authority for the Suez Canal Economic Zone. Darwish will serve a three-year term and had, until his appointment, served as a consultant at home and abroad on strategy, governance, and business processes and technology. Darwish developed a reputation as a rock-solid technocrat during his as Minister of State for Administrative Development, a post he held from 2004 through 2011. Check out his official website here.

---

Tarek Amer’s tenure as Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt is off to a good start with the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) proposing to arrange a USD 1 bn facility to the CBE to improve FX liquidity on Wednesday. The facility could be used to back letters of credit issued to cover imports by key state-owned banks or be in the form of a foreign exchange swap arrangement with the CBE to offer USD in exchange for the equivalent in EGP, said Afreximbank’s president Benedict Oramah. Afreximbank also launched a USD 500 mn Egypt-Africa Trade Promotion Program, which would provide financing to import capital goods and facilitate Egyptian access to African markets, according to a press release issued by the bank. Look for the proposal to be on Amer’s agenda when chairs his first CBE board meeting today after officially beginning his term as its governor on Friday, Al Mal reports.

Partying like it’s 2004: With Tarek Amer beginning his first week as CBE Governor, former Governor Farouk El Okda was appointed to the central bank’s coordination council, “which is dedicated to setting monetary policy goals in liaison with the government.” Reuters suggests that the move indicates the central bank is changing its monetary policy course from Hisham Ramez’s capital controls. Former CEO of PIMCO, Mohamed El Erian, is also a member of the committee and his term was extended. The coordination committee is headed by Prime Minister Sherif Ismail and includes the CBE Governor, the Finance Minister, and other government ministers as well as one of the president’s key economic advisers. Reuters notes that El Okda’s appointment to it is an indication that the coordination committee will play a more prominent role. Enter the hyperbole: Al Ahram says the composition of the committee is “terrifying” the parallel market…

Will gov’t liberalize the fertilizer and sugar cane industries? Well, yes and no, Trade and Industry Minister Tarek Kabil told Al Ahram. The government is studying plans to reform both markets by liberalizing prices for the private sector, while maintaining direct subsidies for farmers, by acting as a middleman between the two. These plans explore having the government purchase fertilizers from manufacturers at the market price, and sell them on to farmers at discounted prices, replacing the current system, which forced fertilizer manufacturers to sell directly to farmers at below market price. In dealing with the sugar cane industry, the government is exploring buying crops at above market prices then selling them to the private sector at the market price, which would replace the current system of having companies buy directly from farmers at above market price. Assuming this is approved, Kabil stopped short of explaining how a government with a presidential mandate to cut a mounting budget deficit plans to achieve this.

Egypt expects first nuclear reactor in Dabaa to produce electricity by 2024, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said on Saturday. Ismail added that “the generation capacity for each reactor is 1,200 megawatts. The first unit is due to start service in 2024.” The PM added that each reactor is expected to remain in service for 60 years.

China Harbour made a USD 1 bn preliminary offer to build and operate a USD 3 bn high-speed railway line linking Alexandria and Cairo. The cabinet is considering the offer, but has yet to decide whether to award the contract to China Harbour or issue a global tender for the project, said the Transportation Minister’s advisor on investments and projects Mahmoud Gamal El Din. The project will be a build-operate-transfer tender, according to documents obtained by Al Borsa. China Harbour is considering funding the project through a loan from an unnamed Chinese bank, said Gamal El Din. The project was among those of interest by the Chinese during both state visits by President El Sisi to China.

Cairo-Six October Monorail will be built in three years, says Housing Minister: The monorail will be built in three years, said Housing Minister Mustafa Madbouly after a meeting with representatives with a consortium that includes Orascom Construction (OC), the Arab Contractors, and Canada’s Bombardier. This seems to refute earlier reports in Al Shorouk quoting that the project was going to an unnamed vendor. The government is looking into financing options for the project, Madbouly added, without giving further details. He did not comment on reports in Al Shorouk quoting the Planning Commissioner for the National Authority for Tunnels (NAT) that the authority had received a USD 1.5 bn EPC-plus-finance offer from unnamed Chinese company. The project, which is a key component of the government’s strategy to link up new urban developments, will include building 10 stations between Six October and Boulaq Dakrour and laying out 35 km of track. (Read in Arabic)

D-Kimia, an American University of Cairo spinoff company, has a new hepatitis C test that yields more accurate results almost instantaneously, Patrick Werr writes. Unlike the kofta device (for the uninitiated: That is, sadly, a joke), the D-Kimia test relies on placing a blood sample “in a solution with bits sequenced for hepatitis RNA. It uses gold particles that start out red but change to blue if the virus is present. The more virus present, the deeper blue it becomes.” The test costs EGP 80-160 to conduct, and the creators have already obtained one U.S. patent for it and are working to obtain another two. The biggest obstacle they face, however, is in obtaining licences and the general government bureaucracy.

Al Borsa published the price list for select 2016 car models. This list also notes customs fees on each car should you want to import. The most expensive of the lot is the new 2000cc BMW X3 at EGP 630k, while the cheapest is the new 1500cc Chevrolet Lanos coming in at EGP 83k.

Israel to open its first diplomatic mission in Abu Dhabi: Israel will open its first diplomatic mission in Abu Dhabi in the next few weeks under the auspices of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), Haaretz reports (paywall). Israel reportedly supported IRENA’s headquarters being based in Abu Dhabi as opposed to Germany in 2009 on the basis of ongoing negotiations that Israel would be able to participate in IRENA activities in Abu Dhabi without prejudice to political circumstances. (Read in Haaretz, paywall). While unrelated, the news was one of three developments in recent days suggesting there may be something of a thaw between Israel and the Arab world: An op-ed appeared in the Kuwait Times challenging prevailing wisdom in the region that Israel is a sworn enemy of the Arabs, and Egypt’s Pope Tawadros II visited Jerusalem — the first Coptic pope to make the visit since 1967.

Russian president Vladimir Putin slapped sanctions on Turkey on Saturday, the BBC reports, following Friday’s decision by Moscow to end visa-free travel between the two countries. The sanctions include restrictions on “imports from Turkey, the work of Turkish companies in Russia and any Turkish nationals working for Russian companies,” according to the BBC. Saturday’s presidential decree also ends charter flights between Russia and Turkey. Erdogan has continued to refuse to apologize for the downing of a Russian bomber near the Syrian border last Tuesday. Turkey exported EUR 702 mn in agricultural products alone to Russia this year, and 20% of Russia’s produce imports come from Turkey.

Meanwhile in Turkey, police responded with tear gas to protests that erupted in several cities, including Ankara, on Saturday, following the killing of prominent Kurdish lawyer Tahir Elci, head of the bar association in the largest city in southeast Turkey. Elci was shot in the head by an unknown assailant while giving a press conference calling for an end to violence, the AFP reports. The US embassy in Ankara described Elci as a “courageous defender of human rights,” while the Turkish authorities had detained him just last month on charges of spreading terrorist propaganda for the PKK. Turkey’s state-owned media has also blamed the PKK for Elci’s apparent assassination.

Terror attacks in Europe are significantly down from their peak in the mid-and-late 1970s, and if you set aside the Madrid and Paris attacks, attacks have resulted in fewer deaths of late than they did in the 1980s. This piece in Quartz doesn’t do much to put it all in context — many of the terror attacks in the 1970s and early 1980s were organized by European leftist or nationalist groups, ranging from the Red Brigades (Italy) and Baader Meinhof Gang (Germany) to the Irish Republican Army (United Kingdom) — but the trends are worth hitting up the link.

Other stories in the international business press worth a moment of your time this morning as you ease into the week:

• From the latest installment in the WSJ’s series on global demographics: “Some 2.5 billion people will be African by 2050, the U.N. projects. That would be double the current number and 25% of the world’s total. There will be 399 million Nigerians then, more than Americans. When the century closes, if projections hold, four out of 10 people will be African. Billions of them will be living in cities that are today small towns. The land of open spaces that was Africa will have blended into one big megalopolitan web.” Read: For a Growing Africa, Hope Mingles With Fear of the Future
• Iran is aggressively courting the global majors, the FT reports: “Iran has revealed the framework of oil and gas contracts to lure back international oil companies, offering more flexible terms on oil price fluctuations and investment risks to make the sector financially attractive.” Among those attending the two-day Tehran Conference to learn more: “France’s Total Group, Norway’s Statoil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Repsol, China’s Sinopec as well as companies from India, Pakistan and Oman.” Read: Iran reveals framework for oil and gas contracts

Mohamed El-Erian has a new book coming out in late January. The high-profile Egyptian fund manager turned public intellectual tweeted this weekend that “The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability and Avoiding the Next Collapse” will hit both brick-and-mortar and virtual bookstores on 27 January 2016. The book has been blurbed by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, ex GE chief Jack Welch, and Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson, among others, and promises to be a “roadmap to what lies ahead and the decisions we must make now to stave off the next global economic and financial crisis. Our current economic path is coming to an end. The signposts are all around us: sluggish growth, rising inequality, stubbornly high pockets of unemployment, and jittery financial markets, to name a few. Soon we will reach a fork in the road: One path leads to renewed growth, prosperity, and financial stability, the other to recession and market disorder.” Check out the full description on Amazon. Need something to read in the meantime? El-Erian was tweeting this weekend about this piece in the WSJ on how “Black Friday” (or “White Friday,” as some Egyptian online retailers would have it) unfolded.

EGYPT IN THE NEWS

Unicorn alert: Good news on Egypt in the foreign press. The lead story on Egypt this morning in international media is news that experts are now 90% certain that King Tutankhamun’s tomb holds hidden chambers, according to an announcement made by Antiquities Minister Mamdouh al-Damaty during a press conference on Saturday: “We said earlier there was a 60 percent chance there is something behind the walls. But now after the initial reading of the scans, we are saying now it’s 90 percent likely there is something behind the walls,” Reuters reported. “There is, in fact, an empty space behind the wall based on radar, which is very accurate, there is no doubt,” Japanese radar specialist Hirokatsu Watanabe said. Lead investigator on the project, British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves, cautioned: “The key is to excavate slowly and carefully and record well. The fact is this isn’t a race. All archaeology is disruption. We can’t go back and re-do it, so we have to do it well in the first place.” The news is also being reported by The Washington Post, TIME magazine, Discovery, and The Guardian among many other outlets.

For the most thorough coverage, see Peter Hessler’s in-depth article in National Geographic on the announcement and the research undertaken by the team, as well as an excellent photo gallery at the end of the article from the first opening of the tomb in 1923

WORTH READING

The value of computational thinking in education: Jeannette M. Wing, currently the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Research and formerly the assistant director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering at the US National Science Foundation, was one of the earliest and certainly most high profile scientists advocating for programming (and more importantly, computational thinking) to be viewed as a core subject throughout all levels of education. “Computational thinking is a fundamental skill for everyone, not just for computer scientists. To reading, writing, and arithmetic, we should add computational thinking to every child’s analytical ability.” Read Wing’s 2006 opinion piece which to this day is still generating debate and influencing education policy around the world in countries such as the UK and Israel. (Read Computational Thinking, pdf)

IMAGE OF THE DAY

Breiðamerkurjökull’s blue-tinged ice caves, the Vatnajökull glacier in Iceland. (View image, photo credit: Diana Robinson). As noted by The Guardian, the Vatnajökull glacier has been featured as a setting for such films as Batman Begins, Prometheus and Interstellar, as well as serving as the shooting location for the scenes beyond the Wall in Game of Thrones.

WORTH WATCHING

In light of news that the on-again, off-again monorail project is currently on again, as noted in the Speed Round section above: (Watch The Monorail Song from the Simpsons, running time: 2:56)

DIPLOMACY + FOREIGN TRADE

Ethiopian Ambassador calls for completing Egyptian industrial zones in Ethiopia
Ethiopia’s Ambassador to Egypt Mahmoud Dirir called for completing procedures to establish Egyptian industrial zones in Ethiopia, in a meeting with Trade and Industry Minister Tarek Kabil. The minister stressed the importance of increasing bilateral trade between the two countries. (Read in Arabic)

ENERGY

200 MW Gabal El Zeit wind farm launched today
Prime Minister Sherif Ismail will inaugurate a 200 MW wind power plant in Gabal El Zeit today, reports Al Mal. Supplying and maintaining the 200 MW turbines for the project, was Spain’s Gamesa which was awarded the tender in 2011. The project was financed by multilateral funding from Germany’s kfW Development Bank, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Union via the Neighbourhood Investment Facility (NIF), according to a Gamesa press release. Gamesa was also awarded a tender for the turnkey construction of a 220 MW wind farm in in the Gulf El Zeit area in April, a project funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), says the company. The 200 MW plant comes as part of the Electricity Ministry’s plan to source 20% of its energy supply from renewables by 2020. (Read in Arabic)

Afreximbank closes USD 525 mn syndicated loan to EEHC
The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) announced the closure of a USD 525 mn five-year syndicated loan to the Egyptian Electricity Company (EEHC) to import gas turbines and other related equipment supplied by General Electric Canada, in the context of Egypt’s Emergency Power Plan. Afreximbank, which served as the mandated lead arranger and original lender, said the facility, granted under its Export Credit Agencies Loans Facilitation Programme, closed on 6 October with eight Egyptian and Gulf banks participating, including NBE, Banque Misr, CIB, and AAIB. (Read in Arabic)

Drilling rig arrives to Well-2 of Zohr field in December
Eni will deploy the first drilling rig at Well 2 of the 30 tn cubic feet Zohr field—the largest natural gas find in the Mediterranean—on 19 December, according to sources from the EGPC speaking to Al Mal. (Read in Arabic)

No international arbitration or FX guarantees with FiT agreements, Electricity Ministry insists
The Electricity Ministry refuse to yield to investors’ demands in the feed-in-tariff (FiT) agreements, Al Borsa reported. The Ministry insisted that, as per the current version of the agreement, disputes will be resolved via arbitration domestically, not internationally, a source noted. Similarly, the Electricity Ministry refused to include guarantees that it will pay FiT investors in foreign currency. (Read in Arabic)

Electricity Ministry reviews eight offers to import smart power meters
The Electricity Ministry is currently reviewing offers by eight companies bidding on a tender to import 3 mn smart power meters, according to Ministry sources speaking to Al Borsa. These companies including El Sewedy, Huawei and Ericsson beat out a total of twelve companies who initially bid for the tender on 16 November. Banque Misr and the NBE have made offers to finance three bidding companies whose technical specs are approved with loans ranging from EGP 500 mn to EGP 2 bn, according to banking sources. The Ministry will evaluate the technical specifications of the offers before requesting companies send their prototypes. (Read in Arabic)

BASIC MATERIALS + COMMODITIES

EU wheat buoyed by Egyptian purchases, GASC reserves suffice until April
Egypt’s strategic wheat reserves are enough to last until April 23, Supplies Minister Khaled Hanafy told Reuters. This followed GASC’s purchase of 240k tonnes of French, Russian, and Romanian wheat. The French purchasepulled the Euronext wheat futures higher as “traders continued to take the view that a sustained run of exports would be needed to clear a hefty surplus in western Europe.”

Poultry Association gets gov’t to subsidize EGP 28 mn worth of chicken imports
Agriculture Minister Essam Farid authorized paying eight domestic importers EGP 28 mn to import 4,000 tons of chicken as a part of an agreement last week between the Ministry and the Egyptian Poultry Association (EPA), said Nabil Darwish head of the EPA. The move comes after concerted lobbying by the EPA led the government to cancel tenders awarded to US suppliers, subsidize poultry imports by domestic companies, and even compensate poultry operators for damages caused by bird flu. (Read in Arabic)

HEALTH + EDUCATION

Egypt’s healthcare subsidies are pro-rich, do not significantly help the poor -Study: “Subsidies associated with University hospitals are pro-rich and have inequality increasing effect, while subsidies associated with outpatient and inpatient care provided by the Ministry of Health and Population have not been pro-poor,” according to a recently published academic study in the Journal of Social Sciences. The study ‘Who Benefits from Public Healthcare Subsidies in Egypt?’ was a joint study by economics researchers from the University of Alberta, Philipps-Universität Marburg in Germany and Damanhour University. The researchers conclude their study with actionable policy prescriptions, including “re-engineering the allocation of health sector subsidies toward healthcare services and facilities that are mostly used by the poor households. Another policy option is reducing the user fees associated with University hospitals, especially for the poor, and redirecting subsidies from University hospitals to MOHP facilities, which are the main source of healthcare services for the poor and rural residents.” (Read the abstract or the full study)

TOURISM

JWT completes amendments to tourism campaign strategy
Tourism Minister Hisham Zaazou approved JWT’s amended strategy for the tourism campaign. The campaign, which was postponed in light of the Metrojet crisis, goes into effect “immediately,” sources within JWT told Al Mal. Details and announcements concerning the campaign have been limited to Zaazou to decrease inaccurate information, the source added. JWT’s projects manager Ahmed Helal had previously noted that some of the targeted markets were substituted. (Read in Arabic)

OHD has not yet reached a debt restructuring agreement
Orascom Hotels and Development (OHD) sent a disclosure to the EGX denying reports it has reached an agreement to restructure EGP 2.8 bn in debt. OHD is looking to restructure the amount, but denies it has finalised a deal with a bank for it. The company says its attempts to restructure fall within the government’s plan to support tourism sector companies. (Read in Arabic)

TELECOMS + ICT

GTH’s Mobilink to merge with Warid Telecom in Pakistan
Global Telecom Holding (GTH) and VimpelCom announced that Pakistani subsidiary Mobilink will merge with Warid Telecom. The transaction is the first merger in the mobile telecommunications sector in Pakistan and will form a company serving 45 mn customers. GTH says the transaction is expected to create Capex and Opex synergies with a net present value of approximately USD 500 mn. (Read)

AUTOMOTIVE + TRANSPORTATION

ICT announces tender to develop Transportation Ministry infrastructure
The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology issued bid requirements and technical specifications for its tender to develop both the IT and the Geographic Information Infrastructure (GIS) infrastructure for the Transportation Ministry, Al Mal reports. An inquiry session will be held on 7 December and a review of the technical offers will take place on January 11. The duration of the project is estimated at 12 months starting from the date of software issuance and installation. Project manager and members shall not be replaced unless written consent is issued on behalf of management officials at the Ministry of Communications. (Read in Arabic)

BANKING + FINANCE

Abraaj Group sells 49% stake in Network International
The Abraaj Group has sold its 49% stake in Network International to Warburg Pincus and General Atlantic, The National reported. The news followed the abandonment of IPO plans, and Abraaj did not disclose the finance terms of the transaction. Emirates NBD retains a 51% stake in Network International. Network International entered Egypt in 2007 through acquiring Network Processing Centre (NPC) and offers hosted card services for debit, credit, prepaid, and mobile banking.

OTHER BUSINESS NEWS OF NOTE

GAFI signs agreement with PwC to improve services
The General Authority for Investment (GAFI) signed an MoU with PwC to help improve the service provided by GAFI and promote investments. According to the agreement, PwC will provide GAFI employees with training programmes on preparing strategic assessments in multiple fields. It will also assist GAFI in producing its publications and could also sponsor events to improve investment attractiveness. (Read in Arabic)

NATIONAL SECURITY

Masked gunman shoot dead 4 police officers near Saqqara: Masked gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on a security checkpoint near Saqqara, killing four police officers on Saturday, according to police Maj. Gen. Khaled Shalaby as reported by the AP. No further details were available at time of dispatch.

Military helicopter crashes in Cairo-Ismailia Road, no casualties reported: A military helicopter crashed on the Cairo-Ismailia Road on Saturday due to a technical malfunction, according to the army’s spokesperson as reported by Ahram Online. Details are still sketchy at present, but no deaths have been reported thus far and the injured crewmen have reportedly been hospitalized.

ON YOUR WAY OUT

TV presenter Mona Iraqi was sentenced to six months in prison for libel,
Al Shorouk reported. Iraqi had led police forces to a bathhouse last December, filming unclothed men and accusing them of debauchery. She said she was trying to punish deviant behavior as a way to reduce the threat of HIV in Egypt.

Got USD 50 mn to drop on real estate? The penthouse in New York’s Plaza Hotel is for sale again at USD 50 mn, about USD 9 mn less than when it last changed hands in 2013, Business Insider tells us, before getting down to what we’re all looking for, anyway: Stunning photos of a pretty remarkable triplex with the most amazing views of the Big Apple we could imagine. Tap here and try harder than we did not to drool on your screen.