It was a wild year for Egypt’s telecom industry with price wars, international disputes, and a rapidly changing industry. The most dramatic – and least satisfying – story of the year came in the form of an international dispute between France Telecom (FT) and Orascom Telecom (OT) over the fate of Mobinil. After repeatedly rejecting …

The Egyptian government has structured its economy around three key revenue earners: the Suez Canal, tourism and remittances. All three depend on global economic factors and threatened to undermine the government’s reform programs in 2009. There was a sense that these sectors could go into freefall since their performances depended somewhat on the performance of …

Economic crises are never a good thing. But depending on the timing, they can be especially devastating. Egypt’s economy was in major growth mode when the recession struck last fall. GDP growth was high, job creation was strong, and Egyptian businesses were going international. As the recession began, analysts turned to a number of critical …

CAIRO: “Consumer behavior is constantly and rapidly changing in today’s world, Hany Mwafy, managing director of Nielsen North Africa, said Monday at a conference. “This requires new and innovative marketing methods in order to keep up with these rapid changes in consumer behavioral patterns and this is what we are presenting to the local market, …

According to a recent survey, Egyptians overwhelmingly say they want a simpler, more streamlined way to pay their bills. The study was conducted by Ipsos Marketing Research for Fawry, a company launched last year that specializes in electronic bill payments. While Ipsos did not release the profile of the respondents, it did say that they …

CAIRO: In an effort to beef up its alternative energy sources, the Egyptian government has established a list of 10 bidders to build a wind farm in the country. The farm will have a capacity of 250 megawatts and is expected to be built on the Gulf of Suez. El Sewedy Cables, as part of …

CAIRO: Members of the region’s private sector are not all competing on a level playing field, according to a World Bank report released Monday. Success depends too often on “privilege and vested interest instead of competitiveness, Shamshad Akhtar, vice president of the World Bank’s MENA region, said at a conference where the results of the …

CAIRO: With Egypt’s demand for affordable housing growing and a thirst for the development of the mortgage industry, the American Chamber of Commerce hosted an event yesterday to bring the lessons learned from the US housing boom and subsequent collapse to Egypt. To speak at the event, the chamber brought in Kathleen Vaughan, an executive …

CAIRO: After a streak that saw Egypt’s Central Bank cut interest rates six times, the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) announced late Thursday that it would hold its key rates. For a second straight month, therefore, the overnight deposit rate would remain 8.25 percent and the overnight lending rate would stay 9.75 percent. As the …

CAIRO: In what amounts to the first hint of how Egypt’s economy performed in the first quarter of fiscal year 2009/10, reports have circulated that real GDP growth is expected to have been 4.9 percent between July and September 2009. This number first surfaced after Bloomberg quoted the Minister of Economic Development discussing the new …

CAIRO: Straying from what officials and analysts have been saying recently, a report released this week poured cold water on those continuing to celebrate Egypt’s resilience throughout the economic crisis. In a note titled “Egypt Rebounding: The Turtle or the Hare, Cairo-based brokerage firm Beltone Financial starts off by saying that the country did manage …

CAIRO: For a country where unemployment is traditionally among the top domestic concerns, Egypt got a new shot in the arm this week as a report ranked Cairo as the seventh best city for outsourcing. The survey was conducted by Global Services and Tholons and is called the “Top 50 Emerging Outsourcing Cities. While Cairo …

While the final day of the Mediterranean Smart Cards Company (MSCC) conference covered an eclectic mix of topics, much of the talk centered around developing technological solutions to further banking in Africa. The conference’s title, “Together for a Better Africa, was especially apt for the discussions on day two because talk centered around how a …

Africa is facing a unique banking challenge in the 21st century. As the world undergoes a lengthy revolution from conventional banking to a more internet/mobile-based technologically savvy banking system, Africa is struggling to build the infrastructure to extend basic bank services to its people. How to put not only the basic infrastructure in place but …

The first day of the Mediterranean Smart Cards Company (MSCC) conference, “Together for a Better Africa, wrapped up with a panel focused on outsourcing business in the context of maintaining security and improving companies’ bottom lines. With a lack of basic banking services infrastructure in Africa, the panelists said, outsourcing is a critical way to …

CAIRO: Makro Egypt held a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday for its chain of wholesale stores expected to spread through Egypt’s capital in the coming years. The event for Makro, which is a sales division of Germany’s Metro Group, was held in Salam City and attended by Minister of Trade and Industry Rachid Mohamed Rachid and Cairo …

CAIRO: In advance of a conference next month aimed at promoting private equity and venture capital in Africa, executives briefed the media about the upcoming event. The eighth annual conference, titled “Africa: The Growth Continent for Private Equity, Investment Opportunities and Beyond, will be hosted by the African Venture Capital Association (AVCA) from Nov. 15 …

CAIRO: The most important organization that no one knows about is, this year, forging ahead with a plan that will fundamentally reshape the way you use the internet. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a global not-for-profit group that, with oversight from countries around the world, is responsible for laying out …

CAIRO: It’s a small company with big plans. They work out of a small Heliopolis office but are partnered with one of the world’s premier technology giants. This is Silicon Vision, and they’re well on their way in transforming the way data is streamed in the IT world. The company is only two years old, …

CAIRO: The Mediterranean Smart Cards Company (MSCC) held a conference in Sharm El-Sheikh this weekend bringing together banking, bank processing, and card experts from around Africa to discuss the future of banking and banking transactions in a conference titled “Together for a Better Africa. The conference was MSCC’s first annual gathering and was intended to …

CAIRO: Al Futtaim Group announced on Tuesday that it had begun leasing property for Festival Center, the commercial hub of its ambitious New Cairo mixed-use development, Festival City. Festival Center is a 180,000-square-meter space that Al Futtaim has begun to fill with a mix of stores and restaurants. According to company executives, when the shopping …

CAIRO: Turkish and Egyptian officials met on Monday afternoon as part of an effort to boost economic cooperation, including trade and investment, between the two countries. Egyptian Minister of Trade and Industry Rachid Mohamed Rachid and Turkish Minister of State for Foreign Trade Zafer Çaglayan gathered for the additional purpose of kicking off the International …

CAIRO: Egypt needs between LE 7 billion and LE 17 billion annually to deliver the kind of healthcare citizens are looking for, the health minister said Monday. Egypt’s International Economic Forum hosted Monday a seminar featuring Health Minister Hatem El-Gabaly. El-Gabaly gave an address entitled “Universal Healthcare & Reform of the Health Sector: The Time …

CAIRO: After a period of significant decline, Egypt’s September inflation rose for the first time in 10 months, largely on the back of higher food prices. Urban headline inflation hit a low of 9 percent in August, but state statistics agency CAPMAS has released data this week saying that inflation bounced to 10.7 percent for …

CAIRO: There are more indications this week that tourism, representing a critical source of income to the Egyptian government, may be pulling out of its yearlong slide. Bloomberg reported Minister of Tourism Zoheir Garranah as saying that tourism revenues fell 6.4 percent in the first nine months of 2009, versus the same stretch in 2008. …

CAIRO: Government and business leaders from Egypt and Malaysia gathered Wednesday for a series of meetings that culminated in both sides signing memoranda of understanding (MoUs), designed to bolster business ties between the two countries. Minister of Trade and Industry Rachid Mohamed Rachid presided over the meeting with Mustapa Mohamed, the Malaysian minister of international …

CAIRO: Egyptians join consumers around the region in expressing optimism over the future of their economy, according to a recent survey. The survey, which was conducted by YouGov and Bayt.com, illustrated the long held argument that Egypt suffered less in the global economic crisis than developed economies. Around 48 percent of Egyptians surveyed said they …