Egypt becomes the Arab’s largest liquified natural gas in Q2-2021 with the Arab’s share amounting to 30% of total world exports of LNG

Newsletter

24 Aug 2021

For our hottest news of the day, Egypt becomes the Arab’s largest liquified natural gas (LNG) in Q2-2021 with the Arab’s share amounting to 30% of total world exports of LNG during the same period. Egypt ranked first among the Arab countries in terms of LNG exports in the second quarter of 2021 as its total LNG exports amounted to 1.4 million tons. The Arab countries’ total exports of LNG grew by 11.9% year-on-year (YoY) to 28.3 million tons in Q2-2021, compared to 25.3 million tons in Q2-2020.

Second, The Egyptian Ministry of Finance ended the administrative seizure of assets of more than 3,000 corporate taxpayers in the period time of April 2020 to July 2021.
The companies in question have paid 1-10% of the total income tax and value-added tax (VAT) at a total value of 159.7 million EGP as part of an initiative aimed at resolving tax disputes.
Third, Egypt has so far invested 1.5 billion EGP on upgrading the electricity networks in Beni Suef since 2014 increasing the number of electricity subscribers to around 800 thousand.
412 million EGP of the total amount has been invested in adding and replacing power distribution panels, overhead power lines, and cables.
On another note, Oddigo secures 2.2 million USD financing in a seed round with contributions from Y Combinator, 500 Start-Ups, and Plug and Play Ventures along with regional venture capitalists such as Seedra Ventures, and Loftinc Capital.
The financing will be used to accelerate the company’s growth and increasing its footprint across UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. Odiggo is an auto tech start-up based in Egypt and UAE that connects car owners with different services providers including repair, washing, and maintenance.
By the same token, Banque Misr’s micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) financing portfolio reaches 27% of the bank’s total financing portfolio following the latest requirements from the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) stipulating banks shall raise their SMEs financing portfolio to around 25% of the total financing portfolio.
The bank’s SME financing portfolio reached 55.7 billion EGP at the end of June 2021. Banque Misr reported a 110% year-on-year surge in net profit during Q1-2021, recording EGP 2.4 billion EGP, compared to profits of 1.14 billion EGP in the same period of 2020.
Moving on to the Investments coverage, Egyptian Kuwaiti Holding (EKHO) applies for license to the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) to establish a new microfinance company under the name “Bedayti”.
The FRA is reviewing the feasibility study submitted by EKHO to get the preliminary approval within a month and half. The microfinance market in Egypt includes a limited number of companies, most notably Tasaheel, Aman, Tamkeen, Cash for microfinance, Vitas Egypt, Tamweely Microfinance.
Similarly, Tamweely is in the process of securing a 300 million EGP credit facility from a consortium of 3 local banks including Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank Egypt (ADIB).
The microfinance company aims to use the loan to increase its lending portfolio and is already in talks with the Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) to obtain financing worth 100 million EGP. Tameely is also planning to launch its first nano finance product to the market in 2022 after obtaining the approval of the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA).
Equally important, Bahrain-based Arab Corporation Bank (Bank ABC) has appointed Amr Tharwat as the new managing director and CEO of Bank ABC’s Egyptian division after the Bank’s board of directors’ approval, coming into effect starting 26th of September 2021.
Tharwat has over 26 years of experience in local and regional corporate and investment banking. He worked for HSBC for more than 15 years, of which he was the Head of Global Banking in Egypt for seven years, while also having stints in banking institutions based in Dubai.