EXCLUSIVE- FinMin, MNOs reach preliminary agreement to scrap EGP 50 fee on new mobile phone lines: The Finance Ministry has reached a preliminary agreement with Egypt’s four mobile network operators (MNOs) to do away with a levy on new mobile phone line purchases that was imposed at the start of the fiscal year last July, a government official tells Enterprise. The one-time per-line EGP 50 duty on new lines — which was introduced as part of a package of new administrative services meant to help diversify the state’s sources of income — has been blamed for the decline in Egypt’s mobile penetration rate in the past several months. The ministry will likely replace the levy with a separate, yet-to-be-determined tax on phone bills.

Background: The Finance Ministry had said last year that it could raise the stamp tax on mobile phone bills by 2-4x or introduce an entirely different fee to replace the EGP 50 levy, a senior government official had told us at the time.