The Egyptian Ministry of Military Production has partnered with Manufacturing Commercial Vehicles

Newsletter

29 Jun 2021

For our top news, green energy is taking place, the Egyptian Ministry of Military Production has partnered with Manufacturing Commercial Vehicles (MCV) to produce the first locally manufactured electric buses. For those looking to participate in Egypt’s renewable energy sector, it will be important to closely monitor the situation as the Egyptian government attempts to balance fiscal and political pressures with investors’ concerns around dispute resolution, currency fluctuations, and restrictions on international financing. We believe that companies who are able to anticipate and navigate the evolving landscape will be best placed to take advantage of the considerable opportunities in the renewable energy sector.
In other news, oil and gas giant Total will change its brand to TotalEnergies. The company’s ambition is to be a world-class player in the energy transition. The change in name and visual branding is set to anchor the company’s strategic transformation into a broader energy scope, primarily, expanding in renewable energy.
Moving to companies talks, Contact Financial Holdings has been awarded the “Fastest Growing Financial Institution in Egypt” award from The Global Economics. The leading non-bank financial services company won this global award in recognition of its customer-centric strategy and innovative and flexible agenda.
Equally important, it is worthy to mention that Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) confidence in Egypt is on the rise, after facing unprecedented changes in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The inaugural Mastercard Middle East and Africa (MEA) SME Confidence Index found that 73% of SMEs in Egypt are optimistic about the next 12 months. This highlights the opportunities for small businesses that arise from both internal transformations as well as industry regulations and trends. Earlier this year, the Central Bank of Egypt made it easier for SMEs to access capital by encouraging banks to raise their share of loans to MSMEs.
Moreover, the Egyptian-Saudi Joint Committee for the development of Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) has launched a website to present its efforts in financing the MSMEs through Saudi Arabia’s grant that is worth USD 200 mn dedicated to support Egypt’s efforts to close the gap between financial institutions and MSMEs and to facilitate their access to finance through financial intermediaries. The current portfolio of cooperation between Egypt and Saudi Arabia amounts to USD 1.9 bn, managed through the SFD.
In the light of Egypt politics talks, Ethiopia doesn’t want the UN Security Council to get involved in the GERD disputes. Egypt and Sudan have been trying to get international support, but Ethiopia said that this undermines talks at the African Union (AU) negotiations. Egyptian diplomats including Egypt’s FM said that if Ethiopia rejects the UN interference, then Egypt “has exhausted all diplomatic options.” However, time is not on Egypt’s side, Ethiopia plans on filling the dam next month during the rainy days. This will cause concern on Egypt’s and Sudan’s water supply.
On the other hand, President Abdel Fattah El Sisi became the first Egyptian head of state to visit Iraq in more than 30 years yesterday as he met the Iraqi President Barham Salih, and Jordan’s King Abdullah II. The talks saw the three countries agree to deepen security and economic cooperation featuring discussions about terrorism, the dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), the situation in Palestine, and the reconstruction of Iraq.
Finally, for Egypt COVID vaccine’s last current status updates, Egypt will receive a shipment of 1.9 million doses of the Oxford, AstraZeneca vaccine to Egypt in July. The shipment will be Egypt’s last Gavi/ Covax shipment. The initiative has allocated 4.5 million shots to Egypt and has so far delivered 2.6 million. Egypt and six other countries have used 80% of the shots sent by Covax. In the next two weeks, Egypt is set to receive more raw material to produce Sinovac’s vaccine, as China will ship material sufficient to produce 7.5 million doses of the jab.