141 Articles
CAIRO: Egypt’s National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (NTRA) has decided to enforce legislation banning voice services on the internet, according to Khaled Hegazy, external affairs director for Vodafone. At press time, Vodafone was the only mobile provider to enforce the regulator’s decision, which specifically targets Skype, the free internet calling and video-chat service, making it no …
Jazz pianist Bill Evans once said of his art form, “Jazz is a mental attitude rather than a style. It uses a certain process of the mind expressed spontaneously through some musical instrument. French group Abraxas Projekt, with Jérôme Paressant on soprano and bass clarinet, electronics and thumb piano, and Antoine Hefti on drums, manifest …
CAIRO: Endeavor’s first international selection panel gathered in Cairo to choose businesses that will benefit from the mentorship and network access offered by the NGO, which supports entrepreneurs. Endeavor staff from Mexico, Turkey, Jordan and the US, as well as American and Egyptian consultants, gathered to review the profiles of 11 entrepreneurs, seven from Egypt, …
The danger is too great of thus learning to look at solemn things in a spirit of mockery, and to seek in them opportunities for exercising wit. -Lewis Carroll. I can’t help feeling that Lewis Carroll (aka Charles Dodgson) would be disappointed with director Tim Burton’s take on “Alice in Wonderland. Burton imposes a hackneyed …
CAIRO: Egyptian representatives from various multinational companies discussed the costs and benefits of product innovation on a panel hosted by Ipsos, a survey-based research company headquartered in Paris. Rahif Kayal, Ipsos’ MENA marketing research director, pointed out that rates of product failure have risen as a result of faster trend cycles. “The rate of success …
CAIRO: Urban annual consumer price inflation for February fell to 12.8 percent, down from 13.6 percent in January and slightly below analysts’ expectations. Predictions from analysts had ranged from 12.4 to 13.9 percent, but settled on a mean of 13.3 percent, according to Reuters. Three out of six analysts saw annual urban inflation rising to …
CAIRO: The confidence of the Egyptian consumer has returned, according to a recent Consumer Confidence Survey carried out by MasterCard. In the minds of Egyptians, the anxiety of the global economic crisis is over. MasterCard’s survey on Consumer Purchasing Priorities revealed that 86 percent of Egyptian consumers surveyed consider “dining and entertainment their top spending …
CAIRO: “This is the most interesting stock market in the region, Vera Trojan, senior vice president, partner, and equity portfolio manager for Wellington Management Company, said Sunday “We are impressed with the efforts of the leading companies on the stock exchange, and [their] progress in transparency, disclosure and investor relations efforts, she added. Trojan expressed …
Reading Daily News Egypt’s opinion piece on the V Magazine feature “Curves Ahead, I was struck by the tone of the article itself as well as the comments elicited online. The highly publicized Dove campaign to show “real women represents an earlier assault of skinny model-dom, the women in “Curves Ahead don’t look how women …
CAIRO: The Minister of Investment, Minister of Communications and the Chairman of the General Authority for Investment (GAFI) are leading delegations to Hong Kong and Singapore this week to promote Asian investment in Egypt. The annual Euromoney Egypt Investor Conference, held in London for the previous five years, took place in Hong Kong. The decision …
CAIRO: Commercial International Bank (CIB), winner of “Best Bank in Egypt 2009 awarded by Euromoney, sat down with Daily News Egypt to discuss 2009’s success and 2010, a year that looks to see extensive evolution of the Egyptian banking sector. Asked whether the possibility that needed foreign investment might remain scarce, they optimistically replied, “Where …
After reviewing Eric Blehm’s “The Only Thing Worth Dying For: How Eleven Green Berets Forged a New Afghanistan, (published in Daily News Egypt, Feb. 4, 2010), we caught up with Blehm via a phone interview. “The Only Thing Worth Dying For, published last year by Harper, documents the mission of Special Forces team ODA 574, …
CAIRO: The National Bank for Development (NBD) introduced two new Islamic banking products last week: sukuk, a debt instrument, and yosr murabaha, a personal finance tool. Since the acquisition of 49 percent of NBD’s stock by the Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) in 2007, NBD has been transitioning to Sharia-compliant financial services. Prior to ADIB’s …
CAIRO: Morgan Stanley upgraded its rating of the Egyptian stock market to “overweight , adding Egypt to the ranks of China, Russia, Brazil, India, Malaysia and Poland as markets in which investors should acquire stock. Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Barra calculates global stock market ratings for every country in its All Country World Index …
If parliament passes the microfinance law, they will enable private companies to provide microcredit, establishing the first legal framework to regulate microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Egypt. Currently only four Egyptian banks provide microcredit, as well as numerous NGOs, but they do so under the authority of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Social …
CAIRO: Investment risks in Africa are over emphasized, according to the Export Credit Guarantee Company of Egypt (ECGE), which reported that it had doubled credit cover to the continent in the past two years. Alaa Gouda, General Manager of ECGE, told Reuters, We have always been speaking of this part of the world (Africa) as …
CAIRO: The hope for $10 billion in foreign direct investment, one of Egypt’s most important contributors of foreign currency and source of capital for increased production capacity and job growth, will fail to materialize for fiscal year 2009/2010. Director at CI Capital Research Mona Mansour told Bloomberg that, “It’s very difficult to reach the government’s …
CAIRO: Consultant, architect and professor of interior design, Amr Abdel Kawi wants to change the design scene in Egypt. Through his company Rhimal and Magaz magazine, Abdel Kawi attempts to restore what he sees as Egypt’s rich aesthetic tradition while closing the gap between designers’ visions and industrialists’ products. “Why are we [Egypt] not participating …
CAIRO: ConnectmeTV, a new media hub and service designed for both the masses and high-end Egyptian market, launched Tuesday at the 14th annual Cairo ICT. A panel of media experts discussed the new product’s applications and contextualized it within the environment of Egyptian media. Defined as “a media hub that acts as a hi-definition satellite …
CAIRO: Didier Lombard, CEO and Chairman of France Telecom (FT) since 2005, acceded to pressure and will step down a year ahead of schedule. In a public statement, France Telecom said, Didier Lombard, France Telecom chief executive, has decided to propose to the company s board meeting on February 24 to separate the jobs of …
CAIRO: Microfinance has reached a new developmental stage in Egypt as microfinance institutions (MFIs) are “moving to a commercial footing rather than acting as primarily philanthropic organizations, a bank executive said. “Today MFIs need access to commercial finance, transactional services support, savings: a broad cross section of financial support. They look to be treated as …
CAIRO: This year’s Cairo ICT opened Sunday with the general consensus that the sector has remained relatively unfazed by the economic slowdown. Egypt’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology Tarek Kamel toured the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) trade fair and forum, which is currently in its 14th year. The forum will close on Feb. …
CAIRO: Vodafone will start offering new modems in Egypt and the region that will allow wireless streaming of high definition media, according to CEO Hatem Dowidar. Speaking to Daily News Egypt on the sidelines of the Cairo ICT, Dowidar said, “We’re offering in Egypt and the region modems with 28.8 megabits per second, wireless. This …
CAIRO: Minister of Trade and Industry Rachid Mohamed Rachid expects Egypt’s new industrial zones to attract investments totaling LE 85 billion ($15.5 billion). 42 million square meters in Borg Al Arab, Sadat City and Tenth of Ramadan City will be made available for industrial development. Rachid told reporters that both foreign and domestic investors will …
The period of time immediately following September 11, 2001 – for Americans at least – feels now like a blur. It’s not that media reports were necessarily unclear, nor was the swift reaction of the Bush Administration to the attacks. But previously unknown organizations, (Al-Qaeda, the Taliban), people (Bin Laden, Mullah Omar), and places, (Kabul, …
CAIRO: If the Mortgage Finance Fund can reach their goal, Egypt’s mortgage market will jump from LE 4 billion to LE 10 billion in the next three years, MENA reported. Iman Ismail, managing director and CEO of the Egyptian Mortgage Refinance Company, the first mortgage liquidity company in Egypt, affirmed that the target of LE …
CAIRO: Government spending decreased by almost 7 percent in the past six months, falling from LE 163.5 billion to LE 152.4 billion, according to figures released by the Ministry of Finance. Revenues fell even faster to LE 94.7 billion, a drop of 25.8 percent as the deficit rose to almost 5 percent of GDP at …
CAIRO: Although Minister of Trade and Industry Rachid Mohamed Rachid is “hoping that by the end of [2010] we’ll have the momentum for 6 percent growth in Egypt – partially driven by a targeted 10 percent increase in exports – he warns that this will be a difficult year, as “all the factors that came …
The geography may be wrong and the ingredients might be local, but a taste of the café s food is certainly authentic. Bienvenidos a El Español, the closest you’ll come to the Iberian peninsula without leaving Cairo. Reda Reda, who shares ownership and managerial duties with the head chef, Conchi del Barrio, (also his mother), …
One of the world’s youngest contemporary art fairs, Art Dubai has already emerged as the most significant commercial art event in the region and already figures among its more venerable peers. Last year the BBC stated, “With Art Dubai, Dubai will soon position itself alongside Paris, London and New York as a world art center. …