Madbouly Cabinet officially approves state privatization program
CABINET WATCH- The Madbouly Cabinet officially signed off yesterday on the state privatization program, according to a statement. The statement provides no further details on the program, including the size of the offerings, or the timeline. The cabinet had announced on Tuesday that five already-listed state companies will pilot the privatization program with additional stake sales. A source had told us last month that Eastern Tobacco will likely pilot the program in September with a 4% stake sale.
Ministers approve new wheat shipments as GASC drops AOS as wheat supplier: The General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) has removed Dubai-based trader AOS from its list of approved suppliers, according to Reuters. The cabinet approved yesterday the purchase of 120k tonnes of wheat from two other traders to replace the shipments AOS had been contracted to provide. A GASC official said yesterday the two shipments have already arrived in Egypt, but did not disclose which trading firms supplied the cargoes, according to the newswire. GASC had canceled a wheat shipment from AOS in June after repeated delays in delivery. The company had been given two extensions for delivering the wheat but had failed to meet both deadlines, Supply Minister Ali El Moselhy said at the time.
Other decisions taken during the weekly meeting:
- Beginning negotiations with a Hassan Allam-led consortium to arrange a USD 4.4 bn loan to finance the 6 GW Hamrawein “clean coal” power plant whose contract the consortium won last month;
- Approving a EGP 2.5 bn direct order agreement with state-owned vaccine manufacturer Vacsera to supply serums and vaccines;
- Reducing the minimum GPA requirement for North Sinai students’ enrolment in university.