Good morning, wonderful people, and welcome to the last full work week of Ramadan. As things stand:

• Next week will be a day short in celebration of Sinai Liberation Day (likely to be observed on Sunday, 25 April)
• We then tumble into a four-day weekend on the occasion of Coptic Easter and Sham El Nessim. The former is a bank holiday, so banks and the stock market will be off for four days. (Labour Day falls on Saturday, 1 May, so expect government offices to be closed.)
• And then it’s the last week of Ramadan, with the Eid El Fitr holiday starting on Wednesday, 12 May.

BUT, BUT, BUT… Yes, we know — holidays are supposed to be celebrated on Thursdays, under a cabinet decree. But the decision gives ministers wiggle room to observe holidays on Sundays. The idea is that mid-week holidays are tacked onto weekends, which we think is eminently sensible.

IT’S A BIG WEEK FOR: Our climate, as 40 world leaders gather in the United States for the Leaders Summit on Climate Change (official website), which runs next Thursday and Friday. The Biden administration has invited attendees ranging from the leaders of Canada and China to the EU, Gabon, Germany, Italy, Jamaica and Japan. From our corner of the world: Our ex in Ankara, Sheikh Khalifabin Zayed Al Nahyan from the UAE, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, and Bibi next door are all due to attend. Egypt is not invited despite being particularly vulnerable to climate change.

***CATCH UP QUICK with the top stories from Thursday’s edition of EnterprisePM:

• M&A Watch: Sodic has tapped EFG Hermes to advise on Aldar’s acquisition bid.
• Diplomacy: Egypt invited a Turkish delegation to come for coffee in May.
• Earnings: Education player CIRA reported 12% y-o-y growth in net income in 1H2020-2021.

** So, when do we eat? On this sixth day of Ramadan, we’ll break fast at 6:24pm. You’ll have until 3:53am to eat / hydrate / caffeinate before the call to fajr prayers.

WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY-

Proposed overhaul to Thanaweya Amma up for discussion in the Senate: The Senate will meet Monday to discuss legal amendments that would see students study for their Thanaweya Amma exams for three years instead of one. The changes would also see the exams taken electronically, rather than on paper, while students would be able to pay up to EGP 5k per subject to retake tests. The Senate Education Committee has already come out against the changes, citing concerns over the integrity of electronic exams and suggesting that pay-to-play exams may contravene the constitutional right to education.

Committee-level budget discussions to start in days: The House Planning and Budgeting Committee will start discussing the FY2021-2022 budget in the coming days, Al Shorouk reports.

MARKET WATCH-

Wall Street had a good week: The Dow Jones and S&P 500 closed on Friday at fresh record highs, buoyed by “a strong start to earnings season” and positive signs of economic growth, coupled with a drop in US bond yields, according to the Wall Street Journal. JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs reported soaring earnings in 1Q2021 last week, thanks to the boom in SPAC-based public offerings. Yields on 10-year US treasuries registered their steepest one-week decline since last June, ending the week at 1.571% from 1.664%, suggesting the market is “finally starting to believe” the US Federal Reserve will not hike interest rates to guard against an uptick in inflation, analysts said.

The EGX30 had a less stellar week — the benchmark is now down 6.5% for the year-to-day despite rallying a bit on Thursday to close up 0.3% on the anemic turnover we have come to expect from Ramadan.

CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

New goodies for iSheep? Apple is running a virtual event on Tuesday, 20 April at which pundits think it will unveil AirTags and a new iPad Pro with an improved display and faster processor, among other new products. The headline: Spring Loaded. The event will stream at 7pm CLT on Apple’s website and on YouTube.

GERD summit? Sudan has invited Egypt and Ethiopia’s prime ministers to hold a three-way summit this week to renew negotiations on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Cairo and Addis Ababa have yet to RSVP.

EBRD President Odile Renaud-Basso could visit Egypt sometime this month, Al Masry Al Youm reported last week following a meeting with Egypt’s ambassador to the UK Tarek Adel. This would be her first official visit to Egypt since she was appointed to head the bank in November.

The Central Bank of Egypt will meet to review rates on Thursday, 29 April. We’ll have our customary poll of economists and analysts on the expected outcome from the central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee next Sunday, 25 April.

Check out our full calendar on the web for a comprehensive listing of upcoming news events, national holidays and news triggers.