HIGHLIGHTS from the Euromoney conference: Speakers on the opening day of the conference yesterday included SODIC Managing Director Magued Sherif, who discussed the continued rally of the real estate market in a panel discussion on the sector (pdf). Sherif pointed to Egypt’s demographics as spurring further property development despite a 40% increase in costs following the float of the EGP. In a separate interview with Daily News Egypt, Sherif pointed to high land prices as one of the main problems the sector is facing and urged the government to act on that front. “The government must also bring more land to the market in each auction,” he said, adding that there was a new real estate policy which is expected to regulate bidding by classifying developers according to track record and development capacity. He expects to see more partnerships to mitigate against inflation.

EGX chairman Mohamed Farid spoke (pdf)about new capital market and financial instruments the bourse is planning on introducing, including a commodities exchange and allowing short-selling on the EGX.

Also speaking was Egyptian-American Enterprise Fund Executive Director Amal Enan, who discussed (pdf) how the fund’s strategy after the EGP float now focusses on investing in exporters after having been primarily concentrated on microfinance and financial inclusion. Other speakers and panelists included:

• Renaissance Capital MENA CEO Ahmed Badr;
• Abraaj Group MENA Partner Ahmed Badreldin;
• NI Capital CEO Ashraf Ghazali;
• CI Capital Group co-CEO Hazem Badran
• Attijariwafa Bank co-CEO Ismail Douiri

Links above are to pdfs readouts on the sessions from Euromoney’s PR agencies; we haven’t vetted them. You can read the day’s opening remarks here in Arabic.