Elon Musk shared a video on twitter of the Dendera Temple in Qena, expressing his admiration for ancient Egypt saying “Egypt is on fire”

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15 Jan 2023

Elon Musk shared a video on twitter of the Dendera Temple in Qena, expressing his admiration for ancient Egypt saying “Egypt is on fire”

Elon Musk shared a video on twitter of the Dendera Temple in Qena, expressing his admiration for ancient Egypt saying “Egypt is on fire”. It’s a video about a 2000-year-old staircase case inside the Ancient Egyptian temple of Dendera. Mashat tweeted in response, writing “You bet! Come join us unravel more untold stories about Ancient Egypt at the Grand Egyptian Museum GEM with the full and never-before-seen collection of king Tutankhamun…It’s an unparalleled experience and Egypt welcomes you.” In its time, Dendera, in addition to being a holy place of pilgrimage to honor the goddess Hathor, was also the place where the sick went to seek healing. (Egypt Independent)

The Sovereign Fund of Egypt (SFE) has included five companies in its Pre-IPO Subfund
The SFE has reportedly added military-owned firms Safi and Wataniya, along with state-owned Misr Life Ins., Banque du Caire, and Egyptian Linear Alkyl Benzene (Elab) to its pre-IPO fund. The SFE expects to offer stakes of 20-30% in each of these companies to strategic investors, with a roadshow to market the assets set to take place this month. The EGP closed at 29.61 to the greenback last Thursday, after the EGP / USD exchange rate rose to an intraday high of 30.69. The USD exchange rate fell 0.5% against the greenback compared to last Wednesday, when it closed at EGP 29.76 / USD 1. (Asharq Business)
The EGP has now lost more than 50% of its value against the USD since October and is down almost 90% since the central bank first devalued the currency last March
The banking sector saw 650-750 million USD change hands through the interbank market last Wednesday as much as five times the recent daily average. Blom Bank Deputy Managing Director Tarek Metwally said that the increased liquidity was to thank for the cooling of the rate from its earlier peak during the day. He added that around 250 million USD came from foreign institutional investors naming JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley as among them. (Asharq Business)
Steel manufacturers hike their prices as the EGP weakens
Ezz Steel, Suez Steel, Egyptian Steel and other major manufacturers joined Beshay Steel in hiking their steel prices this week, raising them by around 2,500 EGP per ton after the latest weakening of the EGP. The increases left steel prices at between 25,500 EGP and EGP 27,400 EGP per ton. Steel reached a record high of 30,000 EGP per ton last month, before dropping to around 23,200 EGP per ton. (Al Borsa)
Egypt introduces new 11%-rate agricultural, industrial initiative
Egypt announced a fresh 150 billion EGP worth of loans at a subsidized 11% interest rate to back the industrial and agricultural sectors. The five-year program includes around 140 million EGP in financing to cover the working capital, in addition to, an amount of 10 million EGP to fund the purchase of capital goods. The initiative will be launched immediately once approved by the Cabinet this week. In November 2022, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) ordered banks to stop financing initiatives backing the industrial, agricultural and contracting sectors at an interest rate of 8%. (Al Mal)
Egypt’s GASC books 120,000 tons of Russian Wheat
The Egyptian General Authority Supply Commodities (GASC) has booked 120,000 tons of Russian wheat within the framework of the Emergency Food Security and Resilience Support Project funded by the World Bank under Loan No. EG-9399. The booked amount of wheat will be delivered from Aston Agro in two shipments of 60,000 tons each at a price of 337 USD per ton. The cost and freight (C&F) and purchase will be at sight, funded by the World Bank. The amount was booked for shipment between February 10th to 25th. (Arab Finance)
MCIT Minister discusses partnership, digital capacities support with India’s IIT
Egyptian Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat met with the Director of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), one of leading institutes globally in capacity building, software and systems development last Thursday. The meeting discussed means to exchange experiences and establish international partnerships in training programs and qualifying specialized cadres in ICT sciences. (Hapi Journal)
Saudi Arabia is moving to nuclear energy
Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, is seeking to diversify its energy sources by manufacturing nuclear fuel, along with clean energy, and has been putting its nuclear fuel plan under faster steps for several years. Saudi Arabia has an "emerging nuclear program" that it wants to expand to eventually include uranium enrichment, a sensitive area due to the Iranian nuclear file and the troubled relationship between Riyadh and Tehran. The UAE is the first Gulf and Arab country to establish a multi-unit nuclear power plant but does not enrich uranium itself. (Zawya)
World Bank expects Middle East economies to slow to 3.5% in 2023
The World Bank's previous forecast, released in June, suggested that the region's economies would grow by 3.6% in 2023 and 3.2% in 2024, compared to an estimated growth of 5.7% in 2022, the highest rate achieved by the region in a decade. The bank expects the growth of the region's oil-exporting countries to decline from 6.1% in 2022 to 3.3% in 2023 and 2.3% in 2024. As for the region's oil-importing countries, the bank expects growth to stabilize in 2023 and 2024 at just over 4 percent annually. (WAYA)
US-based software firm Softlight Corporation has acquired a 51% stake in Egyptian cloud computing company Digitech for 262 million EGP
Softlight designs and sells auditing software for IBM iSeries and AS/400 computer platforms, according to its website. DigiTech is an Egyptian firm that offers a host of software solutions such as cloud storage and enterprise content management. (Al Borsa)
Contact Financial Holding wants to tap the securitization market in 1Q 2023
The company also wants to enter the Saudi and Emirati markets and expand in the Horn of Africa this year, he reiterated. Contact Financial closed an 1.1 billion EGP securitized bond issuance for its consumer finance arms Contact Creditech and Contact Credit late last year. (Al Borsa)