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Tuesday, 5 February 2019

IMF signs off on Egypt’s fifth USD 2 bn tranche, parliament discusses constitutional amendments

The airwaves gave us a mixed bag of nuts last night, with the talking heads touching on several topics without offering much by way of analysis.

The IMF signing off on the disbursal of Egypt’s fifth USD 2 bn loan tranche (the details of which we have in Speed Round, below) came up on Al Hayah Al Youm (watch, runtime: 03:43) and Hona Al Asema (watch, runtime: 01:58) but did not inspire much discussion or analysis.

The talking heads’ analysis of the proposed constitutional amendments didn’t inspire insightful discussion, either. El Hekaya’s Amr Adib listed the proposed amendment of constitutional articles (watch, runtime: 09:14), while Rep. Dalia Youssef explained to Masaa DMC’s Eman El Hosary the process of pushing the amendments through (watch, runtime: 07:59).

Tax collections during 1H2018-19 hit 107% of the Tax Authority’s targets, authority head Abdel Azim Hussein said on Hona Al Asema (watch, runtime: 04:22).

Would importing a car yourself be cheaper than buying through distributors? Self-styled automotive industry expert Mohamed Hassan claimed that going rogue and importing a car on your own would help you save EGP 50k (watch, runtime: 10:26), while industry veteran Alaa El Sabaa (who runs the eponymous distributor and is a member of the Federation of Egyptian Chamber of Commerce’s auto division) says doing so would see you pay higher fees than distributors do (watch, runtime: 06:17).

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