Expect today’s news to be led by Finance Minister Mohamed Maait’s trip to Asia to soften the ground for upcoming bond issuances, but there’s a seam of corporate news to be mined as execs return to work from their year-end holidays: Zooba (purveyors of our breakfast hawawshi) raised capital to open their first outlet in New York; a Mercedes-Benz distributor has settled a unspecified dispute with the Madbouly government; CI Capital wants to get into mortgage finance; mobile network operators are looking for relief from a new government fee they say has sapped appetite for new lines; and Maait promised tax stability yesterday as he also said the government could look again at how it plans to implement a tax to fund universal healthcare.

Oh, and the rules under which orders are taken and shares are priced during IPOs may be changing in the wake of the flap over the Sarwa Capital listing this past fall.

Gas producers in the East Mediterranean are scheduled to gather today in Cairo, an unnamed Oil Ministry official said, according to Al Shorouk. Oil Minister Tarek El Molla will convene a meeting of his Greek, Cypriot, Italian, Israeli, and Jordanian counterparts as well as envoys of the Palestinian Authority. Egypt’s bid to become the premier energy hub in the Eastern Med will be a cornerstone of the meeting, the official staid.

Salaries for top Middle East banking and finance professionals are down by as much as 25% in the past year, according to a Bloomberg story citing data from recruiter Michael Page: “Pay for senior bankers fell between 20 percent and 25 percent, while salaries for middle-management positions dropped 5 percent to 10 percent, according to the recruitment consultant’s annual salary survey. Bonuses have also been cut with the average payout now equaling to one or two months’ salary compared with three to four a few years ago.”

The survey specifically focuses on the GCC, where it notes that under pressure from slumping oil prices, finance execs have also lost perks including school fees and other benefits.

Also hurting: Salaries in the GCC are also down in oil and gas, construction and retail, while accounting jobs are moving out of the Mideast to India and Southeast Asia, the report suggests.

So what, maybe we need to stay here at home and make a go of it?

US wants quartet to end Doha fight: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged Arab countries to end the fight with Doha, saying the row is a distraction from the more important fight to contain Iran, Reuters reports. “When we have a common challenge, disputes between countries with shared objectives are never helpful,” Pompeo told reporters in Doha on Sunday.

Just another day in the neighborhood: The Donald has threatened to “devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds” as the United States starts withdrawing its troops from Syria, Politico writes.

In miscellany worth knowing this morning:

A “faltering China” is the new Emerging Markets Zombie Apocalypse for the global business press. Witness Reuters’ report overnight that Chinese foreign direct investment into North America and Europe fell 78% last year, while the Financial Times writes that “from cars to smartphones, signs of weakening [Chinese] demand worry multinationals” in the ominously headlined piece Clouds loom over global business as Chinese economy falters.

Imagine if the FRA were to take an enforced holiday: The US government shutdown continues, making it the longest forced break of in American history. Big Finance is taking notice, as the shutdown threatens to “delay initial public offerings and takeovers that require national security clearance or approval from competition watchdogs,” the Financial Times reports. A key Republican senator close to The Donald is backing a temporary reopening of government in a bid to pave the way for talks with Democrats, Reuters adds. The Dems have rejected Trump’s request for USD 5.7 bn to build a wall on the US border with Mexico.

Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Slack, Palantir and Pinterest are the unicorns most likely to go public in 2019, Bloomberg suggests. Despite the ongoing US government shutdown and stock market volatility of recent months, the possibility remains strong that at least some of these IPOs will take place in what is already shaping up to be a year set to keep investors on their toes as far as IPOs go.

PSA- The sandstorm is over, the national weather office suggests. Our favorite weather app suggests Cairenes can expect a cloudy and generally windy morning with a chance of sunshine this afternoon. Look for a daytime high of about 17°C in the capital city and an overnight low of 8°C.