Happy Monday, friends. It’s shaping up to be another busy news day here at home as the House of Representatives presses on with its budget debates and the Madbouly Cabinet pushes through more regulations.

THE BIG STORY TODAY

Real estate developers are coming under a watchful eye, after cabinet approved a slate of new regulations today designed to protect consumers and reduce market risk, it said in a statement. The new controls make it a legal requirement for auditors to monitor each developer, in addition to requiring developers to submit semi-annual reports on their projects and activities. The new regulations also require companies to create separate bank accounts for each of their projects, and forbid developers from doing any marketing activity for sales of units before they obtain ministerial approval for the project.

THE BIG STORY ABROAD

The international business press is paying particular attention this afternoon to the fate of European energy markets as they withdraw from Russian gas supplies. A number of European countries, including Germany, Austria, and Italy, are turning to increasing their reliance on coal to secure energy supplies ahead of the winter, after Russia begins to throttle its natural gas exports to the continent. Bloomberg, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and CNBC all have more.

The upside to all this: Gas exports from Egypt to the EU are in a prime position to fill the Moscow-shaped hole in Europe’s energy market. Egypt, Israel, and the EU signed last week a new nine-year MoU that will see Israel send more gas to Egypt’s LNG facilities before exporting it on tankers to European shores.

HAPPENING NOW-

The House of Representatives is wrapping up its second day of plenary session debate on the proposed FY 2022-2023 state budget as we hit “send” on this afternoon’s issue. MPs have so far broadly agreed that they will greenlight the spending plan, despite their reservations about the government’s borrowing plans.

** CATCH UP QUICK on the top stories from today’s EnterpriseAM:

• MPs aren’t happy with borrowing plans in FY2022-2023 budget: The government’s estimates for sovereign debt in the upcoming fiscal year’s budget drew criticism from MPs during the first day of budget debate in a plenary session at the House of Representatives yesterday.
• House gets down to business on Competition Act amendments: The House’s Economic Affairs Committee yesterday discussed giving greater powers to the Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA) under proposed amendments to the Competition Act.
• Fitch has cut Egypt’s GDP growth forecast for FY2022-2023 to 4.4% from a prior projection of 5.5%, saying the economy will grow more slowly next fiscal year due to inflationary pressures, it said in its monthly outlook on North Africa.

???? CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

CIB and the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies (ECES) are hosting the second day of their joint conference, Towards COP27 and Beyond, tomorrow at 9am at Semiramis Intercontinental. You can attend the conference at the venue or online via Zoom, or catch the event’s live stream on ECES’ Facebook page.

It’s interest rate week: The Central Bank of Egypt will meet on Thursday to discuss interest rates. A majority of analysts and economists we surveyed expect policymakers to leave rates unchanged, according to our customary poll.

The Big 5 Construct Egypt (pdf) construction industry exhibition runs from 25-27 June at the Egypt International Exhibition Center (EIEC) in Cairo.

Amcham AGM later this month: Our friends over at Amcham will hold their annual general meeting on Monday 27 June at the St. Regis Cairo Hotel. Finance Minister Mohamed Maait will address the gathering.

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

☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- Expect daytime highs of 36°C tomorrow, with the mercury falling to 21°C at night, our favorite weather app tells us.

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