Our friends at AmCham will be hosting ICT Minister Amr Talaat for its monthly luncheon on Sunday, 20 January. You can register for the event here.

French President Emmanuel Macron will be in town in the coming weeks, France’s ambassador in Cairo, Stéphane Romatet said last week, according to Al Ahram. We had previously reported that security cooperation (including the situation in Libya) as well as economic ties will feature high on the agenda.

The Social Solidarity Ministry should be presenting a draft of the new Social Welfare Act to the House of Representatives sometime soon, according to previous statements by Minister Ghada Wali last week, according to Al Mal.

Egypt, Sudan begin trial runs on electricity grid connection project in two weeks: Egypt and Sudan will begin trial runs for the first phase of a USD 60-70 mn electricity interconnection project in a week at a capacity of 100 MW, local news reported.

A government committee mandated with defining Egypt’s informal economy is set to meet for the first time this month. The committee’s work comes in light of the Madbouly government’s bid to convince the World Bank and the IMF to agree to include the informal economy in calculations of Egypt’s GDP.