Chilling (but unsurprising) factoid of the Sharm financial inclusion gathering: Only 29% of adults in the Arab world have access to financial services, against 69% in Asia-Pacific, according to Al Maghrib Abdellatif Jouahri, chairman of the Union of Arab Banks.
Just as bad: Only one of every five SMEs is able to access bank financing even though they represent 80% of the regional economy, Jouahri added.

How big is the nation’s informal economy? It clocks in at about 40% of GDP, with wholesale and retail trading representing 35-40% of the total informal economy and manufacturing another 15% of it, according to CAPMAS numbers cited by Planning Minister Hala El Said. Most of the agricultural sector operates in the informal economy, she said. Separately, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said the informal economy is worth about EGP 1.6 tn annually.

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi delivered a speech (pdf) at the opening ceremony of last week’s Sharm financial inclusion summit, in which he said the Egyptian people are fighting a battle for development at the same time as they combat terrorism (watch, runtime 10:12). The president highlighted Egypt’s accelerating economic growth and said he wants to shrink the informal economy and enhance access to financial services for women and young people.

CBE Governor Tarek Amer highlighted growth in subscribers to digital payment solutions (watch, runtime 8:19), suggesting that progress to-date is just the beginning. He also stressed that the float of the EGP made Egyptian manufactured goods globally competitive.

Prime Minister Sherif Ismail spoke at the gathering, recapping the usual economic growth figures (watch, runtime 5:51).

Policy initiatives: The Alliance for Financial Inclusion’s ninth global policy forum was co-hosted by the Central Bank of Egypt and closed in Sharm El Sheikh on Friday with the launch of the Financial Inclusion in the Arab Region Initiative (FIARI). The initiative will support national-level financial inclusion programs. AFI also unanimously endorsed the Sharm El Sheikh Climate Change Accord, mandating AFI members “to pursue peer learning on practical policy solutions to the intersecting challenges of financial inclusion, climate change and green finance.”

CBE gets AFI leadership role: Deputy Governor Lobna Helal will be vice-chair of an AFI board committee on women and financial inclusion, and the central bank became a member of the institution’s board.