Browsing: Egypt

Commercial International Bank (CIB), the leading private-sector bank in Egypt has announced its plan to increase its presence in the East African region.

This will be achieved by acquiring more banks in the region, which the lender says will help finance Egyptian investors looking for opportunities in Africa’s fastest growing region.

CIB offers a broad range of financial products and services to its customers, which include more than 500 of Egypt’s largest corporations, enterprises of all sizes, institutions, and households.

CIB’s strong brand and growth in retail and Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) banking segments has continued to introduce new customers to the bank, making it the most profitable commercial bank operating in Egypt for more than 40 years.

Mayfair Bank

CIB, which has over $27.24 billion worth of assets acquired a 51 per cent stake in the Kenyan Mayfair Bank, its initial buyout in the African continent last year, …

Ethiopia plans to go ahead with it scheduled second filling of its embattled Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). When complete, the GERD will be the largest in Africa and have the capacity to produce in excess of 6,000 MW per day.

As expected, Egypt, the historic colonial-era custodian, will not have it and along with Sudan, has called for intervention by the African Union (AU) as well as international bodies and the UN Security Council citing security reasons.

Egypt and Sudan want the UN Security Council to intervene in the GERD owing to what the Sudanese government describes as ‘its impact on the safety and security of millions of people.’

They are of the view that Ethiopia is acting of its own accord and in total disregard of the danger, its actions pose to regional stability.  As such, Sudan wrote to the UN Security Council and Egypt has joined the …

Egypt aims to increase its agricultural production by 30 percent by 2024 and increase the gross domestic product of its agricultural sector to 12 percent in the same period.

According to Hala El-Said, Egypt’s Minister of Planning and Economic Development the sector will create job opportunities and increase small farmers income while increasing the country’s exports in agriculture. The agriculture sector will double its export shares to 25 per cent in 2024 from 17 per cent in 2020.

El-Said was speaking during a high-level dialogue on food security in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region hosted by the World Bank entitled “Food Security in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis: Pathways from crisis to recovery.”

The minister said that the agro-food sector incorporates food processing and agriculture as well as related inputs and trade. The agro-food sector makes up around 23.2 per cent of the added value labour …

Egypt’s economy is expected to grow by 2.3 percent in the 2020/2021 fiscal year from the previous project of 3.7 percent in January 2021 according to the World Bank’s Economic Prospects report June 2021.

According to the report, In the 2021/2022 fiscal year Egypt is expected to see further growth rise to 4.5 per cent down from 5.8 percent in the January report, which is a decrease of 1.3percent. In the Fiscal year 2022/2023, the report projects a growth rise of 5.5 percent.

According to the World Bank, in the first half of 2021 Egypt’s economy remained sluggish despite the relaxation of lockdown restrictions. Following unprecedented support in 2020, fiscal policy is expected to be less accommodative in 2021 while the average primary fiscal deficit is expected to be about 4 percent of GDP which is about two thirds its level in 2020.

“The scope for further financial support is …

Remittance flows to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region increased by 2.3 per cent to record about $5.6 billion in 2020 according to a report by World Bank.

The press release from World Bank noted that strong remittance flows to Morocco and Egypt strongly contributed to the growth.

In 2020, flows to Morocco rose to 6.5 per cent while flows to Egypt rose by 11 percent to record a high of nearly $20 billion. Tunisia also recorded an increase of 2.5 per cent.

According to the statement, other economies in the region experienced losses in the same period such as Iraq, Lebanon, Djibouti and Jordan which led to a double-digit decline.

With weak outflows from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and moderate growth in the Euro area, remittances are likely to grow in 2021 by 2.6 percent.

In the fourth quarter of 2020 the cost of sending …

According to a data released on Monday by the Central Bank of Egypt, Egypt’s current account deficit climbed to $7.6 billion in the first half (1H) of the current FY2020/2021 from July to December 2020 up from $4.6 in the same half of FY2019/2020.

This Increase in the current account deficit is associated to the decline in service balance surplus and the increase in the non-oil trade balance

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According to CBE, due to the decline in the investment income balance Service balance surplus contracted by 69.9 percent in the 1H of FY2020/21 posted $1.9 billion, down from $6.3 billion in the 1H of FY2019/20.

The decline in Investment income had a larger effect on the Tourism sector with the CBE showing that tourism revenues dropped by 75.3 percent in the 1H of FY2020/21, reaching $1.8 billion.

In April 13 …

Zimbabwe rabbit farmers have imported 100 more pure breeds to help shore up efforts by the country’s rabbit producers to support and expand further cuniculture production.

With its significant potentiality to generate revenue for the country, its potential export market includes China and the US and farmers are leaving nothing to chance to the lucrative farming business.

Rabbit farming is a very profitable business with its demand for rabbit meat increasing in Zimbabwe. People want to try a different type of meat which is not chicken, beef, or pork.

A lot of people are switching to more healthy meat with less fat. Rabbit meat has become a perfect replacement for chicken since it is also white meat. Rabbits are easy to keep and are very profitable as the feed costs are low due to the fact that they eat a variety of foods.

An increasing number of farmers in Zimbabwe …

While Nigeria is the largest exporter for Sesame seeds, there’s still a lot of untapped potential of the lucrative export business this even as the seeds demand increases  globally.

According to United states market based research report known as Hexa Research the Global sesame seeds market size is expected to hit $17.77 billion by 2025.

The fueling market demand was associated with its Increased application of the product as an anti-oxidant in various pharmaceutical formulations.

With the world production of Sesame seeds estimated to be 4. 8 million tonnes, ten [10] countries accounts for over 80% of it which includes Myanmar, India, China, Tanzania, Sudan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Uganda, and Niger.

Africa, accounts for over 45 per cent of the crop, and in the last 10 years has become as a fast-growing supplier of sesame seed in the world market.

Of the Sesame seeds global production, over two million …

The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), a member of the World Bank Group (WBG), expressed its commitment to support vital development sectors in Egypt, which includes energy and transportation, as well as building on successful partnerships, especially Aswan’s Benban Solar Park project.

Aswan Benban Solar park is a photovoltaic power station with a total capacity of 1650 MWp which corresponds to an annual production of approximately 4TWh of power with the project taunted to prevent two million tonnnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

The Commitment by the world bank to support Egypt’s mega project came during a virtual

meeting held on Sunday between MIGA officials and Egypt’s Minister of International Cooperation Rania Al-Mashat to discuss strengthening partnerships with the private sector and developing the transportation and electricity sectors.

Among those who attended the meeting included high-level officials among them Merza Hassan, executive director of the World Bank Group; Ragui …

Small business enterprises in Egypt wishing to transact business with Amazon Payment Services, a payment processing service in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, have all reasons to do so after the Service provider announced that it will waive all fees for the new businesses.

This latest move is in line with Amazon Payment Services’ mission of providing business with simple, affordable and trusted online payment experiences.

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It is a support initiative undertaken by the Amazon payment services in line with an initiative launched by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) of encouraging the transition to digital payments in Egypt.

This has seen Amazon Payment Services waiving all account setup and maintenance fees for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) for its digital payment service throughout the month of Ramadan until the end of June 2021.

To implement …