CI Capital’s IPO, which was slated for 2017, might be postponed to 1Q18, CEO Mahmoud Attallah tells Hona Al Asema’s Lamees Al Hadidi. Speaking on the sale of CI Capital, Attallah said that the after the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA) approved requests from 12 out of 15 interested investors, with the remaining three investors having been denied approval for incomplete paperwork (watch, runtime 8:49).

Lamees then spoke to Beltone Financial’s Head of research Hany Genena about the depreciation of the EGP this week. He explained that this was due to a spike in demand for USD to import stocks for Ramadan. He adds another explanations, stating that elections in Europe have strengthened the USD. Genena added that the EGP’s depreciation is not a bad thing, encouraging importers to move into industry and benefit from the competitive value of exports.

El Hadidy then moved on to the news about bank’s covering banks’ SAR needs for the umrah season (more on that in Banking + Finance). She spoke to Emad Samy, the head of the religious tourism department at the Cairo Chambers of Commerce about the agreement between the National Bank of Egypt, Banque Misr, and Banque du Caire to supply the SAR 700 mn needed over the coming three months. He counters Lamees’ point that the move would add pressure to the currency market by stating that If the banks don’t do it, companies would have to rely on exchange bureaus, or worse, the black market (watch, runtime 41:39).

Banque Misr Chairman Mohamed El Etreby concurred, warning of the dire consequences if the parallel market should ever see a resurgence (watch, runtime 5:33).

Kol Youm’s Amr Adib spoke to Investment and International Cooperation Minister Sahar Nasr, who gave a keynote speech at the EFG Hermes’ One on One Conference in Dubai. “The main complaint I heard from investors was regarding bureaucracy,” Nasr said, adding that she was working towards cutting all the red tape and has just signed agreements last Sunday to that end, one of which allows new companies to register digitally. Nasr also said that businessman Mohamed Alabbar promised new investments in Egypt (watch, runtime 9:14).

Adib also spoke to MP and House Economic Committee member Solaf Darwish about the extensive size of Ramadan-related imports, like lanterns and nuts, and the unnecessary FX spent on these products that could easily be sourced locally. Darwish said she filed an inquiry to discuss the matter with Supply Minister Ali El Moselhy (watch, runtime 3:29).