133 Articles
CAIRO: Minister of Investment Mahmoud Mohieddin visited the United States for 48 hours late last week to promote investment in Egypt and met with 14 representatives of financial institutions, funds and investment companies. The minister was accompanied by Ziad Bahaa-Eldin, chairman of the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones, and joined members of the …
CAIRO: They called it Black Tuesday. Four days of panic selling on the New York Stock Exchange ended on Tuesday, Oct. 24, 1929 with share prices at only a quarter of their peak earlier that year. The event shocked financial markets around the world and precipitated the Great Depression, and the stock market took 25 …
CAIRO: Visit your nearest Omar Effendi and you will meet staff that behave more like stereotypical civil servants than professional retailers. You ll probably find what you want, more or less; the sheets may not exactly fit your bed and the towel may be too small. And it is clear that a great deal of …
CAIRO: Mercedes-Benz will begin building its top-of-the-line car in Egypt by the end of the year, the company announced on Tuesday. Assembly of the S500L will take place in the factory owned by the Egyptian German Automotive Company (EGA), a joint venture between Mercedes-Benz s parent company DaimlerChrysler and National Automotive Company. The factory, located …
CAIRO: The stock market took a sharp dive yesterday as the government s latest public offering, Misr Aluminum, faltered. Stock exchange officials suspended trading at 11 am for half an hour on Tuesday when the price of several shares declined by 20 percent. By the end of the day, the CASE 30 index, which tracks …
CAIRO: The European Union s (EU) Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection Markos Kyprianou met yesterday with Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and Minister of Health Hatem El Gabali to discuss the government s strategy to combat the avian flu as well as health-related trade issues. Kyprianou s visit was originally planned for later in the …
CAIRO: I recently heard a senior government official relate an anecdote. In Canada, he asked a Canadian, if you are driving late at night, and you see a red light, and there are no police around, what do you do? The official s rhetorical question was intended to contrast the common adherence to rules in …
CAIRO: There is a precious commodity that isn t traded on any exchange. It is more essential than oil and more useful to the maintenance of civilization than any metal. Yet it is also undervalued and overused and the issues relating to its abuse do not rank highly on in the public s list of …
Intro: CAIRO: On the second day of his visit to Egypt, South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun said yesterday that while he is mystified by the dearth of his country s investment in Egypt, it is likely to be the result of a lack of information about Egypt amongst South Korean companies. Roh adds that Egypt …
CAIRO: The Egyptian Vietnamese Joint Committee concluded its second meeting this week after a lull of nine years with the signing of agreements on avoidance of double taxation and tourism cooperation. The committee includes a number of officials from both sides and is headed jointly by Minister of Cooperation Fayza Abul Naga and Vietnam s …
CAIRO: Transparency and governance of corporations are increasingly important issues as public participation in capital markets grows. The popularity of the stock market was clearly demonstrated with several of last year s privatization offerings, including Telecom Egypt, for which numerous individuals put aside their savings to purchase shares. Furthermore, as local companies turn to foreign …
CAIRO: The German group BERICAP inaugurated its new cap factory in Egypt yesterday. The group is a leading international manufacturer of plastic caps for a wide range of containers, including those for food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic products. It has production facilities in 16 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, China and Turkey. …
CAIRO: With the demise of an immediate free trade agreement between Egypt and the United States, the time has come to shed light on other priorities of the trade and industrial development agenda. Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZ), which were expected to be eventually made redundant by comprehensive free trade with the U.S., have now become …
CAIRO: U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sealed the fate of free trade with Egypt after her visit last week. Negotiations on any agreement on the matter are now unlikely to commence before 2009. Despite attempts to pass off the postponement of free trade talks to internal political conditions within the U.S. Congress, the topic …
CAIRO: The Egypt Tourism Workforce Development Program celebrated the graduation of 119 hotel and restaurant professionals on Tuesday. The program, which is funded by the United States Agency for International Development, is in its second phase. The first phase provided training for approximately 10,000 workers in the tourism industry. The second phase started in October …
CAIRO: Protecting intellectual property is an intricate challenge. In the world of copyrights and patents, stealing is not a direct physical action involving an object or an individual; it is a simple, unobtrusive process in which, with the push of a button, zeros and ones are transferred and within moments the culprit has the latest …
CAIRO: Al-Ahram Beverages Co. (ABC), which changed hands twice in the past decade, is now firmly in Heineken s hands. The company was nationalized in 1963 then privatized in 1997. For five years thereafter, it was headed by Ahmed El-Zayat, who turned around the company, bought out competitors and introduced several new brands including I.D. …
CAIRO: Having recently acquired Misr Romanian Bank, executives from Lebanon s BLOM Bank visited Cairo this week and outlined their strategy for Egypt. BLOM is Lebanon s largest bank with total assets of $11.2 billion. It has branches in Jordan, Cyprus and Syria and and with its acquisition of Misr Romanian Bank, also in Egypt …
CAIRO: A leading poultry producer says that it has not sold a single baby chick since the outbreak of avian flu in the country 11 days ago. Wadi Holdings breeds and sells day-old chicks to farmers. It also sells chicken feed and poultry-related products make up the majority of its revenues. The company controls 45 …
CAIRO: Minister of Finance Youssef Boutros-Ghali announced that the government has earmarked LE 1 billion for non-performing loans of small and medium sized businesses. Speaking at a meeting of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, Boutros-Ghali says that his ministry, in coordination with the central bank and the Ministry of Trade and Industry, are …
CAIRO: As panic spreads about the arrival of bird flu, Egyptian poultry companies are scrambling to deal with the crisis. The poultry business was already affected prior to the government s announcement of the first cases of the virus last week. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, consumption of poultry had declined by 60 percent …
ALEXANDRIA: The Confederation of Egyptian European Business Associations (CEBA) formed a division in Alexandria at an inauguration ceremony there on Saturday. CEBA was formed in 2004 by the British, French, German and Italian Egyptian bilateral business associations. The confederation s office in Alexandria will be its first division outside of Cairo. The division will support …
CAIRO: The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), an agency of the United States government that supports American private sector investment in the developing world, is in the process of establishing a $225 million private equity fund for the Middle East and North Africa region. The head of the agency is also in Cairo to explore …
CAIRO: Do you leave Heliopolis at 2:30 p.m. to make a 3 p.m. appointment downtown, only to arrive 15 minutes late cursing the slow drivers and dilapidated cars that caused your delay? If this sounds familiar, then you are a typical traffic offender. Most individuals who speed and violate traffic laws have poor time management …
CAIRO: The software industry in Egypt has been on the rise since the establishment of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in 1999. While the country has long been a center for Arabization and localization of software for the region, the liberalization of telecommunications, along with e-government initiatives, have stimulated information technology (IT) and …
CAIRO: Textiles, garments and cotton cultivation employ a substantial portion of the Egyptian labor force. These sectors have benefited substantially from the Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZ) protocol under which Egyptian goods with a minimum level of inputs from Israel are allowed tariff-free access to the United States. It stands to gain further from last December …
CAIRO: BMW announced this week that it will add a new model to the two that are currently assembled in Egypt. The company also released its sales figures for 2005, during which it achieved a 69 percent growth in local sales compared to the previous year. BMW through its local partner Bavarian Auto Group (BAG) …
CAIRO: The sale of 18.7 percent of Commercial International Bank (CIB) to a consortium of investors was announced yesterday in a deal worth approximately $230 million. All regulatory approvals for the acquisition have been obtained. The consortium, led by Ripplewood Holdings, Eton Park Capital Management and RHJ International, will purchase the stake at the equivalent …
CAIRO: Egypt s competition law was first drafted in 1995. Ten years later, after numerous revisions and modifications, the law was finally passed by parliament in February of last year. Mona Yassine, who has been charged with establishing and heading up the new authority that will implement the law, discusses her progress and plans for …
CAIRO: Cairo ICT (Information and Communication Technology) continued yesterday with discussions on various topics including third-generation mobile networks and e-government. Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Tarek Kamel, said at the opening of the conference that the tender for the third mobile license will be announced next week. Two licenses for international calls will also …