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Tuesday, 15 August 2017

What we’re tracking on 15 August 2017

On a blessedly slow late-summer news day in Egypt and around the world — American pundits seem more obsessed with whether their president would call racists “racists” than the prospect of nuclear Armageddon — the return of an ambassador qualifies as big news.

After more than a year of estrangement, Italy is sending its ambassador back to Cairo. One of our top trade and investment partners, Italy pulled its envoy to Omm El Donia in protest of the brutal murder of Italian grad student Giulio Regeni. The labor researcher went missing on 25 January; his body was found on the outskirts of the capital city days later with multiple signs of brutal torture. “The Italian government’s commitment remains to clarify the tragic disappearance of Giulio,” the Italian foreign ministry said in a statement. “Sending an authoritative liaison (ambassador) will help, through contacts with the Egyptian authorities, reinforce judicial cooperation and as a consequence the search for the truth.” This comes as sources tell ANSAmed that Egyptian prosecutors took “a step forward” on Monday and sent Rome new transcripts from the questioning of police officers who investigated Regeni’s death. The Associated Press, Reuters and Ahram Online also have the story.

Stephen Fakan, the US consul general in Alexandria, announced his departure last week. Fakan wrote on Facebook he and his wife “wanted to take the opportunity to thank everyone who made our tour so special and memorable. This city and lower Egypt is undeniably a remarkable place with remarkable people, and although we leave with heavy hearts, we are grateful that so many of you have shared this wonderful city and its vibrant culture with us.”

Will the government announce across-the-board cuts in port fees today? From what we’re hearing via Al Mal, Transport Minister Hisham Arafat will be announcing discounts as high as 40% on port fees in East Port Said at a presser today. The discounts, which will be based on cargo volume, are meant to win back shipping lines that left the port in March to protest a 150% hike in fees. Additional fees imposed on ships longer than 350 meters will also be scrapped, sources said. This comes as we await the announcement of unified fees for ports across the country on Thursday, sources also tell the newspaper.

Pimco sees “handsome” rewards in emerging market bonds, including Egypt’s, Bloomberg reports. The fixed-income giant said yesterday that EM local government debt will become “much larger, deeper and more liquid as countries including China and Egypt are likely added to benchmark indexes.” This is expected to increase the attractiveness of assets that are already being boosted by a slumping USD. And Pimco isn’t only one singing the praises of EM bonds: BNP Paribas Asset Management, Schroders Plc and Ashmore are all bullish, with the latter calling them “the best bet in the world.”

The Financial Times released a 17-book long list for the FT / McKinsey annual Business Book of the Year for 2017. The FT says this year’s titles “give a new twist to the old maxim about certainty” and “include analyses of the implications of world-changing innovations, from the iPhone to drones; a lively account of the rise of Uber; and a sobering history of the role war, plague and catastrophe have played in shaping our economies.”

One of the standouts on the list is Sheelah Kolhatkar’s Black Edge, which, besides sounding very familiar to fans of the HBO series bns, “describes how Steven Cohen’s former hedge fund, SAC Capital, built its Wall Street dominance before facing insider trading charges.” The economics nerds here were happy to see Nobel Laureate Jean Tirole’s Economics for the Common Good get a nod, despite him consistently being the main source of nightmares for postgraduate microeconomics students since the 1980s. And the Apple Sheep among us are really enjoying Brian Merchant’s critical look at the development and manufacturing of the iPhone in The One Device. More mainstream authors on the list include the Middle-East-taxi-driver-whisperer Thomas Friedman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Stephen King, and journalist Amy Goldstein.

Looking to add to your TBR pile from past winners? We highly recommend Esther Duflo’s and Abhijit Banerjee’s magnum opus Poor Economics — in our opinion, the single most influential book on the list. It looks at the social and economic dimensions of poverty globally and won the award in 2011.

Enterprise is a daily publication of Enterprise Ventures LLC, an Egyptian limited liability company (commercial register 83594), and a subsidiary of Inktank Communications. Summaries are intended for guidance only and are provided on an as-is basis; kindly refer to the source article in its original language prior to undertaking any action. Neither Enterprise Ventures nor its staff assume any responsibility or liability for the accuracy of the information contained in this publication, whether in the form of summaries or analysis. © 2022 Enterprise Ventures LLC.

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