EARNINGS WATCH- Elsewedy Electric posted net profit after minority interest of EGP 3 bn for 1H2017 (up 84.6% y-o-y) on revenues of EGP 20.7 bn, the company said in its half-year earnings release yesterday (pdf). CEO Ahmed El Sewedy noted that the company nearly doubled its revenues “without any significant impact on our profitability margins and cemented our position as a leading provider of integrated energy solutions.” The company sees regional demand for its services at an “all-time high” driven by “population growth, increased pressure to develop adequate infrastructure and the growing desire to modernise the industrial and manufacturing sectors” Demand is broad-based, the company said, coming from the GCC, the wider Middle East and from African markets. In Egypt, El Sewedy said he sees an opportunity to “leverage our core wires and cables and turnkey competencies to extract higher value further up the chain” as the government continues its push to develop the power-generation market.