CAIRO: The People s Assembly Housing Committee has approved a LE 214 million loan from the World Bank to be pumped into the country s relatively infant mortgage financing industry. According to the Ministry of Finance, the government will make the funds available to primary lending institutions represented in the four established mortgage finance companies. …

CAIRO: Minister of Transportation Mohamed Mansour announced the ministry has secured the first order for 40 railway locomotives from General Electric (GE) in a deal worth $120 million (LE 680 million). Despite the relatively small size of the order, Mansour said delivery will begin in September 2008, and continue at a rate of 10 locomotives …

CAIRO: Hugues de Roquette-Buisson, general manager for the Middle East, of AGF-Allianz Group, visited Egypt last week to discuss investment opportunities in Egypt and the recent reforms undertaken by the Government to encourage development. De Roquette-Buisson, as a member of the French Business Investors Association (Medef), met with Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, ministers of finance, …

CAIRO: Merrill Lynch Middle East and North Africa (Mena) held a one-on-one Investor Forum from Feb. 10-13, 2007, in the Red Sea resort town of El Gouna, Red Sea, Egypt. This conference was designed to bring together senior portfolio managers of Merrill Lynch’s top institutional clients and CEOs/CFOs of important corporations in the Mena region. …

CAIRO: Egyptian Petrojet Company will start extending natural gas pipelines to Israel in March 2007 at a total cost of $20 million (LE 114.1 million) said a senior official at Petrojet on Tuesday. The official told reporters on condition of anonymity that Petrojet has already completed technical assessments on the principal pipeline for the East …

CAIRO: The Arab International Bank has sealed a loan agreement with the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company to finance the company’s scheme to install two gas supply lines from Taba to Sharm El Sheikh and Shokair to Hurghada with a total value of LE 355 million and $90 million (LE 512 million).. Chairman of the …

CAIRO: As Egypt liberalizes its economy and moves closer to the European economic sphere, it could be doing so at the expense of its trade relationship with the US, warns an Egyptian business leader. The growing ties behind the EU-Egypt economic partnership have been bolstered by the Euro-Mediterranean neighborhood policy and other agreements, but no …

CAIRO: Orascom Construction Industries said on Monday its new steel fabrication plant in Algeria with capacity of 12,000 tons annually would start production this month. The new plant, which cost $18 million, will raise OCI s overall annual steel fabrication capacity to 67,000 tons, the company said. OCI said in a statement the new plant …

ATHENS: The president of Cyprus said in a newspaper interview published Sunday that he has received assurances from Egypt and Lebanon that they will go ahead with oil and gas exploration deals with the island despite threats from Turkey. Cyprus signed a deal with Lebanon last month to mark out their undersea border to facilitate …

CAIRO: Dandara Development & Investment Co. (DDI) is on the path toward irrigating parts of Upper Egyptian desert land and introducing new wheat alternatives, lupin and quinoa, with large potential for export and local use. With such an initiative gaining momentum, Dandara CEO Hashem El-Dandarawy hopes to put Upper Egypt “on the map in terms …

CAIRO: The US-based giant General Electric has won a tender launched by the Egyptian government to supply the General Railways Authority with forty locomotives valued at nearly $120 million. Minister of Transports Mohammad Mansour said the US company would start supplying the diesel locomotives on September 2008 at a rate of ten vehicles per month. …

MCQ shares up 30 percent in one week on rumors of possible offer CAIRO: Spain-based Cimpor Inversiones SA announced late Sunday it is looking to buy 100 percent of Misr Cement Qena (MCQ) in a deal that could surpass LE 2 billion. Cimpor s offer was posted on the Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchange website …

CAIRO: Egyptian Competitiveness Report has ranked Egypt at 71 among 117 countries on its Business Competitiveness Index (BCI), pointing to a number of obstacles that prevent the country from achieving better ranking in spite of the government’s economic reform measures. Published last week, the report stated that Egypt fell behind a number of Arab countries …

CAIRO: Al Futtaim Group of the United Arab Emirates has revealed its expansions plan that will turn the group s City Center Maadi into a department store chain of forty branches at a total cost of LE 100 million, said Akram Zohairy, Director of the City Center Maadi in Cairo. The expansions are part of …

CAIRO: Ten large companies accounted for 61 percent of total Egyptian manufacturing exports in 2006 with a total value of LE 5.1 billion out of LE 8.34 billion, representing the total value of the country s manufacturing exports. Ashraf Ezzeldin, the executive manager of the Engineering Industries Commodity Council, said that Egyptec Company was the …

CAIRO: National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (NTRA) Chairman Amr Badawy said Sunday the authority is considering suing the country s largest mobile operator Mobinil if the company resumes offering Enhanced Data for GSM Evolution (Edge) technology without acquiring a 3rd Generation license. Badawy s comments came in response to Mobinil s announcement late last week of …

CAIRO: Egyptian exports of pharmaceuticals to the Ukraine increased remarkably over the first ten months of 2006, growing up nearly 70 percent compared with a year earlier. Ukraine s ambassador to Egypt Yevhen Mykytenko said the total value of Egyptian pharmaceuticals exports to the Ukraine amounted to $35 million over the first ten months of …

CAIRO: Minister of Trade and Industry Rachid Mohamed Rachid will discuss with the Chief Executive Officer of HSBC Stephen Green in London the new opportunities for investments of the British bank in Egypt. A senior ministry official said on Thursday that Rachid would encourage Green during their meeting in London to finance renewable energy, auto …

MOF expects strong public resistance to unfamiliar policy CAIRO: The Ministry of Finance (MOF) is preparing new legislation to govern the relationship between the government and the private sector in future public-private partnership (PPP) projects to be offered, Ranya Zayed, MOF Public-Private Partnership Unit director said Wednesday. The law, to be raised to the People …

CAIRO: Dairy producers announced plans last week to raise cheese prices by 12 to 15 percent over the next six months to keep up with inflation in other sectors. Mohamed Kamel, sector head at the Food Industries Division (FID) of the Federation of Egyptian Industries, said rising costs in parallel sectors has made it impossible …

CAIRO: The third annual Business Plan competition in the Information Technology (IT) sector took place Tuesday under the auspices of the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology. The whole idea of the competition is for anyone with a creative idea in IT, Internet or mobile phone technologies to present it. If the idea wins, we …

CAIRO: Minister of Communication and Information Technology Tarek Kamel said that growth rates in mobile phone services will surge to records of nearly 100 percent over the next three years. During the final session of the Cairo ICT Conference on Wednesday, the minister said the number of mobile phone subscribers would double to 34 million …

CAIRO: Shell Egypt announced on Wednesday four discoveries of oil and natural gas in the company’s concessions in the Western Desert over 2006, boosting the company’s oil and gas reserves in Egypt. Zainul Rahim, Chairman of Shell Companies in Egypt, said in a statement Wednesday that Shell Egypt made the first discovery in the Abu …

Associated Press CAIRO: Measures to reduce global warming would not be devastating economically, and the United States has been particularly delinquent on the issue, Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, said Tuesday. Speaking to the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, Volcker said the argument that taxes on oil or carbon …

CAIRO: An Egyptian Fraud Forum Constitution was unilaterally signed by the financial institutions represented at the National Fraud Forum of Egypt in conjunction with Visa International on Jan. 22, 2007. Designed to facilitate the work of the Forum, the Constitution aims to help banks cooperate to collectively fight economic crime. It was authenticated by all …

CAIRO: Investment banking captured the attention of 33-year-old Wael El Hatow, vice president and head of investment banking for HC Securities & Investment in Egypt. El Hatow studied political science at the American University in Cairo then did his MBA at Pennsylvania State University. When people ask me what I do for living, I say …

CAIRO: The third local mobile phone operator Etisalat Egypt plans to attract as much as 10 million subscribers in the Egyptian mobile phone services market by 2010, according to the company Chief Executive Officer Saleh El-Abdooli. In his statements on the fringes on the Cairo ICT conference Tuesday, El Abdooli pointed out that Etisalat Egypt …

Egypt pushes back network launch date one month says Emirates Telecommunications Company CAIRO: Etisalat Egypt, the country s new third mobile network operator, has pushed back its operation launch date to the end of March, Mohamed Omran, Emirates Telecommunications Company (ETC) CEO said at Cairo ICT. The conference wrapped up its four day schedule Tuesday. …

CAIRO: Leaders of Egyptian industrial chambers have expressed strong reservations with the government’s recent decision to curb tariffs by 25 percent on imports of certain manufactured goods, including home appliances, processed food, plastics and medical products. Hamada El-Kalyoubi, chairman of the Textiles Committee at the Egyptian Federation of Industries, attacked the government initiative saying that …

Analyst: real estate market bubble a concern CAIRO: Sixth of October Development and Investment Company (Sodic) signed Monday with international golfer Greg Norman for the establishment of an 18-hole signature golf course under his name at the company s Allegria development in El Sheikh Zayed District on kilometer 38 of the Cairo-Alexandria Desert Road. Once …