The global rise in commodity prices is hitting local aluminium, as Egypt Aluminum has raised the price at which it sells to factories and distributors to EGP 55-66k per tonne, up by nearly EGP 4-5k from last month.

Suez Canal Revenues were up 12.4% y-o-y between January and 12 October this year, Suez Canal Authority boss Osama Rabie said on the airwaves yesterday (watch, runtime: 11:21). The canal’s receipts reached USD 4.86 bn up until this point, with 13.3k vessels carrying 7% more cargo on an annual basis.

Other things we’re keeping an eye on this morning:

• Civil aircraft leasing agreements could eventually be exempted from the VAT after the Madbouly cabinet greenlit a decision to amend some provisions of the VAT Act.
• The Suez Canal Authority signed a cooperation protocol with Siemens that will see the latter train engineers and technicians working for the SCA. The two sides are also studying a potential maintenance and spare parts supply contract.
• Raya Holding’s Aman has obtained an SME lending license from the Financial Regulatory Authority.
• The tender to establish the Tenth of Ramadan City dry port and logistics hub has received offers from six unnamed consortiums after having been launched last June.