Sahar Nasr hits all the right notes in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal (paywall) that hits all the right notes. The international cooperation minister shines with a message that should be directed as much to the hometown crowd as it is to foreign investors: “The Sisi government understands that Egypt’s future lies in cultivating the economic aspirations of its talented citizens and entrepreneurs without the heavy-handed interventions of the state. … A complete overhaul of the legislative and regulatory environment for investment is also under way … a new bankruptcy law is being prepared.” With its invocation of transforming Egypt into an energy hub, infrastructure programs, education, affordable housing and “moving to well-targeted, nondistortionary cash transfers,” the piece had us mumbling patriotic incantations under our collective breath.

Bottom line: We’re taking this piece and Finance Minister Amr El Garhy’s 15-minute sit-down with Bloomberg (see Speed Round, below) as suggestions that the Ismail government is finally starting to communicate with the outside world, and we couldn’t be happier — unless, that is, we were to learn that the government is taking a similar tack with the hometown audience and giving new cabinet spokesman Ashraf Sultan consistent, coherent messages to bang home on the economy.