Egypt is planning to install 5,000 communication towers with 5 billion EGP

Newsletter

20 Feb 2022

Egypt is planning to install 5,000 communication towers with 5 billion EGP

For our top talks today, Egypt is planning to install 5,000 communication towers with 5 billion EGP (318 million USD) in investments, according to Egypt Communication Minister Amr Talaat. This project is set to be implemented over the coming three years, in partnership with IHS Towers. The minister also added that the telecommunication sector in Egypt has seen a growth rate of 16% in 2021. The telecom sector now contributes 5% to Egypt’s gross domestic product (GDP), up from 3.2% three years ago. The government aims at raising the sector’s contribution to GDP to 8% in the next three years. (Al Arabiya.net)

The Central Bank of Egypt decided to exempt imports of goods worth up to $5,000 from the recently issued new import policy, according to the Federation of Egyptian Banks (FEB).
The exempted goods include tea, meat, poultry, fish, wheat, oil, powder milk, formula baby milk, beans, lentils, butter, and corn, in addition to medicines and vaccines. The CBE also required banks to cut the issuance fees of letters of credits to match those for the existing process of documentary collection. Moreover, banks will have to raise credit limits for existing customers and set new limits for new customers based on their import volumes. The new rules are set to come into force on February 22nd. It is worth noting that the CBE recently issued new regulations that abide banks to only accept letters of credit to ease the purchase process of imports and to not accept documentary collection from exporters. (Arab Finance)
Colliers International, a leading commercial real estate brokerage and investment management company, has maintained its positive full-year hotel occupancy forecasts for Egypt, according to its January 2022 report on MENA hotels.
Hotel occupancy rates in Cairo are likely to rise by 21% year-on-year (YoY) in 2022 to reach 69% in 2022. Moreover, Colliers’ forecasts indicated that Alexandria’s full-year occupancy rate would reach 64%, up 19% YoY. As for Hurghada, occupancy rates are projected to jump by 29% YoY this year to record 69%. Meanwhile, Sharm El-Sheikh’s occupancy rates are expected to hit 60%, increasing by 19% YoY. (Arab Finance)
The Egyptian government is in talks with a consortium comprised Dubai-based Metito Holdings Ltd, Norway’s Scatec ASA, and Orascom Construction PLC (ORAS) over a 1.5 billion USD renewables-powered desalination plant.
This move comes as part of Egypt’s strategy in addressing possible water shortages. The consortium is seeking to partner up with the Sovereign Fund of Egypt on setting up the plant, which would follow a build-own-operate-transfer system (BOOT). A proposal has been submitted by the three-companies consortium to Egypt for the establishment of a 400-megawatt solar-power facility and a desalination plant to process up to 1 million to 2 million cubic meters per day. (Bloomberg)
Turning to the investments talks, six banks and international institutions have signed financing contracts to fund the diesel production complex project in Assiut with around 1.5 billion USD.
The lenders are namely; Italy’s Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP), Credit Agricole, UniCredit Italia, HSBC Bank Middle East, France’s BNP Paribas, and France’s Société Générale, with the Italian Export Credit Agency SACE backing the funding. A banking consortium comprised the National Bank of Egypt (NBE) and the national Bank of Kuwait (NBK) acts as the financial advisor on the project. Meanwhile, Credit Agricole serves as the general coordinator of the financing, while HSBC acts as the general agent. The construction works of the complex are currently being executed and it is set for completion in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2022. (Arab Finance)
Export Development Bank of Egypt’s (EBE) (EXPA) portfolio of loans and credit facilities recorded 40 billion EGP at the end of 2021,
marking an increase of 29 billion EGP since 2016, according to the bank’s chairman Mervat Soltan. Soltan stated that the bank devised a big plan before the Covid-19 outbreak to develop core banking, which helped launching several digital services over the past period. EBE intends to launch a new online service before the end of February. Soltan said that the bank played a key role in the disbursement of 6 billion EGP as exporters’ dues, in collaboration with four banks. She further unveiled that the agricultural sector now accounts for a range between 8% to 9% of its loan portfolio. (Hapi Journal)
Banque du Caire (BDC) (BQDC) received a 30 million USD loan from the Green for Growth Fund (GGF).
The loan will be used to support the bank’s capital base and financing capabilities. The recent funding marks GGF’s first-of-its-kind loan to be provided to any Egyptian bank after it recently obtained a license from the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE). BDC, the 99.9%-owned by Egypt's second-largest state-owned bank Banque Misr, is the sixth-largest bank in Egypt in terms of total assets, acquiring a 3% market share in system-wide loans and deposits. The bank also has the third-biggest customer base, with over 3 million customers. (Arab Finance)
Moving to our EGX and companies talks, Adwia Pharmaceuticals is considering a number of investment opportunities, including a possible acquisition of one of the companies operating in the pharmaceutical industry.
Negotiations with the target company over the acquisition deal are expected to complete in March. Moreover, Adwia targets achieving sales of 1.3 billion EGP by the end of 2022, with a growth rate of up to 30%. Adwia Pharmaceuticals is planning to make investments worth around 400 million EGP in 2022. The pharmaceutical company is also planning to release 11 new products in the market this year and to enter new export markets. It is worth noting that Adwia has a factory spanning a 15-squaremeter space in the 10th of Ramadan City. (Al Borsa Newspaper)
The Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Shell Egypt and Schlumberger, according to an official statement by the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources.
The MoU aims at considering the possibility of developing mutual businesses in the field of decarbonization, with the focus on the use of hydrogen and low-carbon energy. The scope of work includes some activities related to production of hydrogen and ammonia from natural gas, using carbon in all hydro-carbonic activities, and reducing ethane emissions. Through this collaboration, the three companies aim at supporting decarbonization in the Egyptian gas sector. (Arab Finance)
KGL International Ports, Warehousing, and Transport, an affiliated company to Kuwait’s KGL Logistics, and Damietta International Ports Company (DIPCO) have reached a binding agreement with the Damietta Port Authority (DPA) to settle all disputes.
Under the agreement, international arbitration disputes, lawsuits, and legal actions between the three parties, regarding the establishment and operation of a new containers’ terminal at Damietta Port, have been settled. Accordingly, the DPA will pay 100 million USD to KGL International and 40 million USD to DIPCO, in addition to, a sum of 120 million USD to other involved parties. It is worth noting that KGL International Ports holds a 25% stake in DIPCO. (EGX)
Utopia for Real Estate and Tourism Investment’s (UTOP) unaudited financial indicators showed an 11% year-on-year (YoY) decline in net profits after taxes in the full year 2021.
The company’s unaudited net profits after taxes dropped to 2.641 million EGP in 2021, from 2.967 million EGP in 2020, the statement revealed. On the other hand, revenue jumped 10.6% to 9.812 million EGP last year, compared to 8.873 million EGP the year before. (EGX)
Heliopolis Housing and Development (HHD) (HELI) extended the deadline for receiving new offers for leasing of Show Land and Child Park at Merryland Park to Tuesday, March 15^th.
The offered areas will be used for touristic activities and entertainment over a build-up area of around 1,000 square meters (sqms) and a total land area of about 10,615 sqms. HHD is a leading Egypt-based real estate development company that operates in land reclamation and subdivision, residential real estate development and management, property purchase and sale, as well as projects’ planning and supervising. (EGX)
valU, a subsidiary of Egyptian Financial Group Hermes Holding (EFG Hermes) (HRHO), signed a three-year exclusive agreement with Al Ahly Sporting Club to offer financial plans to the club’s new members.
The new agreement provides Al Ahly’s new members in Gezira, Nasr City, Sheikh Zayed and the New Cairo branches with premium buy-now pay-later (BNPL) financial services to pay for new memberships and renew memberships with up to 10 years tenor plans. valU will also have franchises at all the club’s branches to enable customers to activate their accounts on the spot in just a handful of steps. (EGX)
valU, a subsidiary of Egyptian Financial Group Hermes Holding (EFG Hermes) (HRHO), is allocating over 50 million EGP in 2022 to develop technology infrastructure, according to the CEO Walid Hassouna.
valU is planning to maximize the quality of all of its services to enlarge its market share in the coming period, Hassouna revealed, adding that the company will inject huge investments in recruitment of talents and the development of technical support. The top official further noted that the company will work on enhancing its performance in the next six months through the efforts of 45 engineers to reap the fruits of such development later. Hassouna also stated that valU has generated more than 4 billion EGP in sales since its establishment in 2017 and is targeting over 5 billion EGP in sales this year. With a wide-range of plans, valU is the first-of-its-kind buy-now pay-later (BNPL) fintech platform in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). (Al Borsa News)