Browsing: Egypt

Egypt, one of Africa’s strong economy—has seen a sharp rise in business activity which bounced back in June, marking a 4-month high record, as the North-African recovers from the coronavirus grip and showing signs of uneven recovery.

According to information from IHS Marki, Egypt non-oil sector rose sharply, while the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) rose to 44.6 in June from 40.7 in May, remaining below the threshold of 50 that separates growth from contraction.

However, the rebound is felt evenly as still things tighten, unemployment has risen to 9.2 per cent, firms cutting wages at a fast pace in four years—hence HIS economist anticipates potential change.

READ:IMF $5.2 Billion Stand-By Arrangement for Egypt

A different view

On the other side, before the pandemic, the World Bank’s Macro Poverty Outlook noted that growth was driven by a macroeconomic stabilization program that was largely successful, generating a solid primary budget surplus, …

The IMF executive board approved a 12-month Stand by Arrangement (SBA) with the access of about $5.2 billion to help Egypt address balance of payment to finance COVID-19 needs.

The  Fund-supported program aims at helping Egypt cope with challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic by providing Fund resources to meet the country’s balance of payments needs and to finance the budget deficit.

The approval of the SBA enables the immediate disbursement of about $2 billion while the remainder will be phased over two reviews.

The SBA will also help support the government’s efforts to preserve the macroeconomic achievements made over the past four years and advance key structural reforms.

The advanced structural reforms will help improve governance and transparency, strengthen the frameworks for public finances, reduce hindrance to competition to move towards sustainable and inclusive private sector growth and support health and social spending to protect vulnerable groups.

In 2016 …

Mozambique, Angola, Namibia, Ethiopia, Zambia, Rwanda, Uganda, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.

These are the African countries set to be allowed to enter the EU territory as the borders reopen in July, according to a draft list of the countries obtained and reported by euronews.

As the European Union gets ready to reopen its borders, officials in Brussels are debating behind closed doors, the draft of two lists; one with those countries that will be accepted, and one for those which will not, as the territory struggle to meet their previously announced July 1st goal.

The euronews sources also reported that officials “could not reach an agreement”, that talks would continue and that the deadline to open the borders may very well be extended beyond July 1st, suggesting agreements will not be forthcoming in time.

Also read: Air passengers travel confidence key to salvaging African airlines

Notably, Brazil, Qatar, …

Egypt will resume flights from July 1^st, the civil aviation minister said yesterday in a joint press conference with the ministers of tourism and information.

The decision is “an important step for the aviation sector to be accompanied with the sanitization operations for all the country’s airports and aeroplanes,” said Mohamed Manar, Civil Aviation Minister.

The minister also added that air traffic will operate regularly in the country then gradually with other states.

As a precautionary measure to curb the spread of the COVID-19, Egypt had suspended international flights since March 19 as well as shutting down shut down restaurants, hotels and cafes.

Mr Manar noted that the suspension period was used to enhance the infrastructure of airports national wide.

“All planes have been comprehensively sterilized and only dry meals and canned beverages will be offered,” Manar said.

Mr Manar also added that the distribution of any publications …

Banque Misr, Egypt’s second-largest bank, has announced plans to enter the Kenyan market as it seeks lending deals in East Africa and serving Egyptian firms operating in the region.

To fund the Kenya expansion the state-run bank plans to borrow $250 million from international lenders this year. The Kenyan expansion will also coincide with planned entry into Somalia and Djibouti.

“We are in talks with two international institutions on loans with competitive interest rates,” said Mohamed Eletreby, Banque Misr chairman.

Mr Eletreby added that Banque Misr could enter Kenya through setting up branches or representative offices.

Also Read: Absa Kenya’s US$ 100 million kitty for women entrepreneurs

The bank has branches in the UAE and France, as well as units in Lebanon and Germany and representative offices in China, Russia, South Korea and Italy.

The Banque Misr announcement marks the latest declaration of interest by an Egyptian lender to enter …

Economic growth generated through digital payments could add up to 3.5 per cent to Egypt’s GDP, according to Visa.

Visa, which describes itself as the world’s leader in digital payments, in partnership with the Egyptian Banking Institute (EBI), hosted the Egypt Payment Security and Digital Solutions Conference earlier this week.

The conference was attended by leaders from Egyptian banks, traders and fintech firms, it featured presentations by Visa experts on the latest cyber-security trends and digital solutions.

The company also presented its security roadmap for Egypt’s payments ecosystem, which is based on the strategic security pillars of protecting data, devaluing data, harnessing data and empowering consumers.

It includes facilitating the deployment of best-in-class digital solutions such as contactless cards and tokenisation which is a process where personal data is protected by replacing it with a randomly generated number or token so as to support both online payments and in-store, as …

Egypt, one of Africa’s vibrant tourism destination, has recorded a 5.6 per cent Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the past six months, to December 2019, Reuters said a government statement revealed the information.

Tourism has been attributed to Egypt’s economic growth in the last three years, strong remittances from Egyptian workers abroad and recently discovered natural gas fields coming on stream.

Hence, the nation’s growth has mainly been driven by the state sector. The World Bank (WB) spotlighted the nation’s economy and noted that, on the sectoral side, gas extractives, wholesale and retail trade, real estate and construction have been the main drivers of growth.

Unemployment decreased to 7.5 per cent in the fourth quarter of FY19 (from 9.9 per cent a year earlier), although accompanied by shrinking labour force participation.

According to Reuters January poll, the economy is expected to grow 5.8 per cent in the fiscal year ending …

Egypt’s annual urban consumer inflation rose to 7.2 per cent in January from 7.1 per cent in December, the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) said.

From December, it announced that month on month urban headline inflation stood at 0.7 per cent adding that Inflation remains within Egypt’s Central Bank of a target range of 9 per cent, plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The CBE announced that Egypt’s core inflation increased to 2.7% in January from 2.4% in December. Consumer prices decreased to 0.2% in December after decreasing to 0.3% in November.

Also Read: Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan set for Blue Nile dam agreement this January

Since August in December 2019, Egypt’s annual consumer price inflation rate recorded its highest rate rising to 7.1 per cent from 3.6 per cent in November.

According to Trading Economics data, prices rebounded for food & non-alcoholic beverages decreased to 1.8 …

South Africa has fallen to third place due to its constrained economic growth according to RMB’s “2020 Where to Invest in Africa” report.

But the country still holds its place as Africa’s bastion of a well-developed financial and capital market.
The report said the JSE remained Africa’s most liquid stock exchange with an excess of $1.4 billion traded daily. Which is much higher than Egypt’s Cairo Stock Exchange which trades $44 million a day.

According to RMB report, South Africa also ranked highly on other financial market depth measures such as private credit as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), showing that consumers have access to a wider range of financial instruments compared to other African countries.

The report showed, however, South Africa’s ease of doing business ranking in the last few years has slipped but it remains one of the top ten easiest operating environments in Africa.

Also

African Development Bank (AfDB) approved a $22 million Senior Loan to help corporate leasing company (Corplease) expand its lending to SMEs in Egypt.

The decision signalled confidence in the growing local market and in Egypt’s economy as a whole.
Out of the $22 million, African Development Bank will mobilize $7 million from the Africa Growing Together Fund (AGTF), a co-financing fund, established with the People’s Bank of China.

Corplease is a leading non-bank financial institution that provides diverse leasing products and services to SMEs and larger corporates, through sale, direct leasing and leaseback, as well as structured finance products. to address funding constraints in the private sector in Egypt, corp lease seeks to provide alternative financing through leases.

Also Read: African Development Bank $1m grant to Burundi

“The need for leasing products in Egypt is growing consistently on an annual basis to meet the acute demand by small, medium and …