Good afternoon, wonderful people, and happy end to hump day. One week from today, a bunch of us will be at the Grand Egyptian Museum to meet many of you at the Enterprise Climate X Forum. It’s our first-ever large-scale event, with more than 200 C-suite execs, bankers, investors, DFI folks and more set to join us to talk through what we think is the world’s largest and most exciting industry.

More on that below…

THE BIG STORY TODAY

Saudi Arabia is rolling over its USD 5 bn deposit at the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) for an additional year, according to reports in Bloomberg Asharq and Al Arabiya. Saudi had made the one-year deposit in March of this year to help shore up Egypt’s finances and contain the fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine.

THE BIG STORY ABROAD

Another day, another afternoon of the international business press being squarely focused on protests in China. Authorities in China are now “seeking out” people who participated in protests against the country’s covid-zero policy, while trying to stamp out criticism of the policy by placing the blame on local governments for failing to contain covid-19 breakouts. The story is on the front pages of Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and CNBC.

---

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

• Somabay’s Ibrahim El Messiri on how a tourism push could draw immediate FX: After reading our five-step recipe for turning Egypt into a global export hub and FDI magnet, Somabay CEO Ibrahim El Missiri talked to us about why tourism and aviation should be put on a focused short list of priority industries.
• CBE looks at proposals to help shore up FX liquidity: The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) is mulling a handful of options as part of its strategy to increase FX liquidity, after CBE Governor Hassan Abdalla met with the heads of the nation’s banks on Sunday.
• Egypt’s economy grew 4.4% y-o-y in 1Q FY 2022-2023, according to preliminary data from the Planning Ministry.

Subscribe to Enterprise

FOR TOMORROW-

Tomorrow will be the last day of payment and fintech conference Pafix, which is being held as part of Cairo ICT 2022 at the Egypt International Exhibition Centre in New Cairo. The conference kicked off yesterday.

???? CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

CORRECTION- The House Manpower Committee will continue hearings on the new draft Labor Act next Wednesday, 7 December, not today, as we incorrectly wrote in this morning’s edition of EnterpriseAM. The session will see representatives from the Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI) and the Egyptian Trade Union Federation in attendance. The bill, which was approved by the Senate in February, extends both maternity leave and notice periods, caps working hours, and changes minimum raise increments, among other things. We have more on the bill’s finer points here.

EGX-listed Pachin will brief shareholders on acquisition offers it has received in its ordinary general assembly on Tuesday, 20 December, according to an EGX disclosure (pdf). Dubai-based National Paints Holdings is offering to purchase 100% of Pachin for EGP 29 per share — far outbidding earlier offers from Universal Building Materials and Chemicals (Sipes) and Saybad Industrial Investment that have since been withdrawn.

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

☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- We’re looking at a sunny day tomorrow with temperatures in Cairo expected to hit 25°C during the day before falling to 14°C in the evening, according to our favorite weather app.