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Monday, 28 January 2019

Macron’s visit dominated the airwaves last night

French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Egypt dominated the airwaves last night.Macron kicked off his trip with a visit to Aswan’s Abu Simbel temple with his wife, which El Hekaya’s Amr Adib said is a positive step towards promoting Egypt’s tourism industry (watch, runtime: 07:11). The French president is expected to meet with President Abdel Fattah El Sisi in Cairo today to sign agreements worth around EUR 1 bn, Al Hayah Al Youm’s Khaled Abu Bakr noted (watch, runtime: 03:45). The story also earned some airtime on Hona Al Asema (watch, runtime: 02:09).

Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir’s arrival in Cairo yesterday was also on the talking heads’ radars last night. Sudan’s Ambassador in Cairo Abdel Mahmoud Abdel Halim stressed to Al Hayah Al Youm’s Lobna Assal the importance of strong ties between the two neighbors (watch, runtime: 06:14). We have more on this in Diplomacy + Foreign Trade, below.

The EGP strengthened slightly against the USD yesterday, prompting speculations from commentators about what it all means. Former Banque Misr deputy chairman Sahar Damaty attributed the change to increased investor confidence in Egypt after IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde praised our economic reform program, but noted the future trajectory of the currency is difficult to anticipate (watch, runtime: 5:06). QNB CEO Mohamed El Deeb said there is greater appetite among investors for Egypt’s debt instruments, which caused the EGP to rally (watch, runtime: 5:19).

We hate to burst your bubble, but the weakening of the USD has nothing to do with us: The USD slid on Friday after The Donald agreed to a temporary end of a government shutdown. A US Federal Reserve meeting later this week where the US is expected to keep interest rates on hold could also have a thing or two to do with the decline, Reuters noted earlier this week.

Last week’s World Economic Forum in Davos also came up on Al Hayah Al Youm with host Khaled Abu Bakr congratulating the Egyptian delegation on their efforts to promote Egypt as a success story and investment destination (watch, runtime: 02:33).

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