CBE steps in to speed up resolution of legal disputes between state-owned banks and manufacturers: The Central Bank of Egypt is intervening to expedite solving the legal disputes between banks and manufacturers, and agreed with the Egyptian Federation of Investors Associations to form a specialized committee to resolve these disputes, according to Youm7. The National Bank of Egypt, Banque Misr, and Banque du Caire were directed to solve these issues as soon as possible and stop all legal procedures.

This is part of the CBE’s drive to prop up local industry: Thousands of factories have defaulted on facilities in the past few years for a range of reasons, from poor management, to funding, cost of production, and marketing problems. The government and the CBE had launched an initiative earlier this month to exempt nearly 5.2k factories from accrued interest payments and see their names removed from a blacklist maintained by the CBE. The total amount of overdue payments reached EGP 31 bn. The CBE also earmarked EGP 100 bn to boost domestic manufacturing by allowing medium-sized factories access to subsidized loans at a declining 10% interest rate.