Could it be, will the laptop ban on Egypt be lifted today? US authorities have finally seen fit to remove the three-month old laptop ban on EgyptAir flights heading to the US, according to a statement by the company. The ban’s lifting will be effective today and will be provisional for a year or until another emergency amendment is introduced, said EgyptAir CEO and Chairman Safwat Musallam, according to Reuters. He added, however, the ban remains in place for flights to the UK. Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathi welcomed the move, adding that the ministry has been working in coordination with the “entities” and bodies at Cairo International Airport to implement new security measures on flights to New York. Entities here is probably a reference to a security delegation from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) which arrived today to inspect Cairo’s airport.

Hold your horses, the lifting of the ban for Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Morocco is pending an assessment by the DHS in the coming weeks, its spokesman David Lapan said, according to Reuters. Lapan said DHS would confirm the removal of the measures for EgyptAir after they verified the airline’s security procedures. We’ll have to wait for today to see when exactly the ban will be lifted and hopefully try to reconcile these two contradictory statements.

More banks have started to move interest rates in response to the CBE’s 200 bps interest rate hikes last Thursday. By Al Borsa’s tally, 11 banks have moved monthly interest rates on deposit certificates with variable interest rates to between 14.75-19.25% yesterday. These include Kuwait National Bank and United Bank. From what we can tell, Banque Du Caire was the first among the top three state-owned banks to move interest rates. State-owned banks reportedly held had their Alco (assets and liabilities committees) meetings yesterday, but nothing has yet emerged from Banque Misr or the National Bank of Egypt on how they will move.

Did the interest rate cuts wipe out gains from the fuel and electricity subsidy budget cuts? Beltone Financial seems to think so in a research note it put out yesterday. The investment bank sees the rate hike as having tacked on an additional EGP 50 bn in debt service, essentially wiping the gains made from a near EGP 51 bn in savings from subsidy cuts. This appears to go against the wisdom of Finance Minister Amr El Garhy who denied the impact on the hikes on the budget.

The embattled automotive sector may be among some of the hardest hit industries by the hike, with the Egyptian Automotive Manufacturers Association saying through its CEO Hussein Moustafa that move may compact declines in sales by another 5-10%. Beltone also sees that the some of the biggest beneficiaries of the rate hikes include commercial banks, real estate developers, petrochemical and fertilizer manufacturers due to their low debt and land assets.

Meanwhile, the Support Egypt Coalition — Parliament’s largest electoral bloc — is looking to hold a meeting to discuss the impact interest rate hikes on investment with the heads of four House of Representative committees some time this week or the next, Al Borsa reports.

The new electricity prices came into effect when it was published in the Official Gazette on Monday, according to Youm7. The hardship raises for state bureaucrats (covered and not covered by the Civil Service Act), which President Abdel Fattah El Sisi ratified last month, was also published in the Gazette on Tuesday.

Egypt, KSA, the UAE, and Bahrain’s foreign ministers are scheduled to meet with US State Secretary Rex Tillerson in Jeddah today to relay their stance on their boycott of Qatar, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement yesterday. Tillerson, who is engaging in shuttle diplomacy, signed an agreement with his Qatari counterpart yesterday to combat financing terrorism, Reuters reports. This comes as Qatar announced the arrival of more Turkish troops at its military base in Doha, according to the newswire.

This comes as France’s Total will invest USD 3.5 bn over five years in Qatar’s offshore Al Shaheen oilfield and expects to keep production running at 300,000 barrels per day in future, French and Qatari executives said on Tuesday.