Latest in Tag: FJP Highlight
Latest in Tag: FJP
Opening the North Coast to foreign tourism
CAIRO: Travco Group, an Egyptian travel leisure group, in partnership with TUI AG, the largest integrated German travel and leisure group, announced the inauguration of the Almaza Beach Resort on May 30, the first of five hotels that will be launched as part of Almaza Bay Resort, a mega tourism project developed by the two …
Median interbank rate falls to 8.15 percent
CAIRO: The median overnight interbank rate on the pound dipped to 8.15 percent on Thursday from Wednesday s 8.27 percent, with the cancellation of a T-bill auction boosting liquidity in the market, bankers said. The Finance Ministry had offered 364-day T-bills worth LE 1.5 billion ($260 million) for auction on Thursday and issue on May …
Warnings for WTO deal as trade talks flounder in Paris
Agence France-Presse PARIS: A senior U.S. official cast doubt Wednesday on chances the WTO will be able to wrap up a global trade deal by December and Egypt warned that negotiations could collapse if the needs of developing countries were ignored. There s an awful lot of work that has to be done and frankly …
IFC signs on to support oil and gas projects
CAIRO: The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, announced that it has signed a $25 million financing package for Rally Energy Corporation, a Calgary-based oil and gas firm, to support upstream oil and gas projects in Egypt and Pakistan to help strengthen energy production in order to meet …
Stocks fall in early trade, wipe out rebound
CAIRO: Egyptian stocks extended this week s heavy losses in early trade on Thursday in a bout of panic-selling by small investors and Gulf investors, traders said. The benchmark Hermes index was 4.9 percent lower at 12:25 GMT at 44,132.50 points, and the Case 30 was off 5.4 percent at 5,017.14 points. The slump in …
Taking a stride in the technology race
CAIRO: Under the auspices of Tarek Kamel, minister of communication and information technology, Orascom Telecom (OT) and Intel Capital, the venture capital investment arm of Intel Corporation, announced on Tuesday that they have signed an agreement to create Orascom Telecom WiMAX Limited. This joint venture company will work with the government and private sector to …
Another postmortem
CAIRO: Speaking earlier at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East, William Rhodes, chairman, chief executive officer and president of Citicorp Holdings and Citibank, said that the ongoing volatility of stock markets in the region is the result of too much money chasing too few projects. Rising oil prices have caused a substantial increase …
Placing brings Egypt's El Sewedy Cables to market
CAIRO: Major shareholders in El Sewedy Cables raised LE 1.29 billion ($224 million) through a private placing carried out through the Egyptian stock exchange, a company statement said on Wednesday. The shareholders, many of them members of the Sewedy family, sold 30 million shares, or half the company s stock, at LE 43 a share, …
EU outlines farm moves
Reuters PARIS: The European Union outlined to the United States on Tuesday how it might improve on its agricultural offer in a long-delayed global trade round and said the next move must come from Washington, an EU official said. EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson and Susan Schwab, who is expected to be confirmed as U.S. …
National Bank of Bahrain looking at Egyptian bank
CAIRO: The Central Bank of Egypt has given National Bank of Bahrain clearance to do a due diligence study on Egypt s Delta International Bank, the Egyptian stock exchange said in a statement. Similar statements in the past have been the prelude to takeover bids in the banking sector, which the government is trying to …
Interbank rate falls to 8.27 percent
CAIRO: The median overnight interbank rate on the pound was 8.27 percent on Wednesday, down from Tuesday s 8.283 percent although demand for funds to invest at a central bank auction remained strong, traders said. The central bank auctioned 56-day certificates worth LE 11 billion ($1.9 billion). We ve actually started to see some demand …
Egypt mulls pound eurobonds
Reuters SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt: The Egyptian government has started talks with investment banks on the possibility of issuing bonds abroad denominated in Egyptian pounds, Investment Minister Mahmoud Mohieddin said in an interview on Sunday. It could be something like 500 million euros or dollars and this I think is going to be taken very positively …
Shares extend losses, index dips over 5 percent
CAIRO: Stocks dipped sharply for a second day on Tuesday, with the benchmark index down more than 5 percent in early trade on the back of a dip in other markets, traders said. The benchmark Hermes index, which shed 6.1 percent on Monday, was 5 percent lower at 09:50 GMT at 45,743.30 points. The Case …
Interbank rate rises to 8.35 percent
X CAIRO: The median overnight interbank rate on the pound was 8.35 percent on Tuesday, up from Monday s 8.049 percent after central bank auctions drew liquidity from the market, traders said. The central bank auctioned 7-day certificates worth LE 7.4 billion ($1.28 billion) and 63-day certificates worth LE 2 billion. There are two auctions …
Intel unlikely to slash jobs in efficiency review
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt: Intel Corp. is unlikely to shut plants or slash jobs following a top-to-bottom review announced last month to address shrinking market share and slowing computer sales, a senior executive at the world s biggest chipmaker said on Sunday. That has not been the expected outcome, Gordon Graylish, Intel s vice president and …
Sawiris says government should join hands with secular movements to combat political Islam
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt: Orascom Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Naguib Sawiris have made no secret of his political views. He fears the rise of religious political movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood and believes the government should work with others to resist this tendency. I think the government is making a mistake by trying to …
EFG-Hermes chief sees big opportunities in Saudi Arabia
Reuters SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt: The chairman of Egypt-based investment bank EFG-Hermes said on Monday its newly obtained Saudi license was crucial to growth because it expands the company s market four times over. Saudi accounts for over 75 percent of the total fee pot of the Arab world. So whatever we are doing today we …
World Economic Forum comes to a close
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt: The World Economic Forum is, for better or worse, essentially about strengthening ties between government and business. A number of representatives from civil societies also attend, but ultimately the true theme of the forum, globalization, is driven by business interests. Nevertheless, a number of social issues were addressed by the forum s …
Call center chief sees offshore growth in Egypt
Reuters SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt: The chairman of Egypt s largest offshore call center company said on Sunday his company was growing at 50 percent a year and that in this sector Egypt could become to Europe what India is to the United States. Adel Danish, chairman and chief executive of Xceed, told Reuters in an …
Retail selling pulls stock market lower
CAIRO: A slump in EFG-Hermes shares pulled the wider Egyptian stock market lower on Monday, with a sell-off by small investors expecting a further drop in stock prices weighing on the bourse, traders said. There s a lot of selling pressure, retail is continuing to sell across the board, one trader said. They could not …
Egypt mulls pound eurobonds
Reuters SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt: The Egyptian government has started talks with investment banks on the possibility of issuing bonds abroad denominated in Egyptian pounds, Investment Minister Mahmoud Mohieddin said in an interview on Sunday. It could be something like 500 million euros or dollars and this I think is going to be taken very positively …
U.S. Treasury's Snow lauds Mideast development focus
Reuters SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt: Middle East oil producers seem correctly focused on putting more oil wealth into domestic development and this poses no threat to the U.S. dollar, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow said on Sunday. More than $200 billion of extra income has flowed to producers who belong to the Broader Middle East and …
Supporting development through education
CAIRO: Intel Corporation announced Saturday that as part of its global commitment to spur economic development in emerging markets, the company, in collaboration with the Egyptian government, will lend its support to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) launch of the Egypt Education Initiative by training 80 percent of Egyptian teachers in the effective use of …
The Midas touch
CAIRO: The recent fluctuations of gold prices, which reached a 25-year high of $727 per ounce and rapidly dropped down to $657 per ounce and have temporarily caused paralysis in gold markets worldwide have not had much of an affect on the sales influx at Azza Fahmy outlets. Yes, [the fluctuation] does affect the price …
Management restructuring key to success
CAIRO: When Farida Khamis started working regularly at her family business, Oriental Weavers (OW), she faced two challenges: like any businesswoman in the country, her first was to attain credibility in a male-dominated field. As a woman, her second challenge was even more difficult: restructuring the management of the corporation along the lines of multinational …
Orascom says to bid for third Saudi mobile license
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt: Orascom Telecom will be among bidders for a third mobile phone license in Saudi Arabia, but does not intend to take a large stake, Chairman Naguib Sawiris said on Saturday. Saudi authorities plan to grant new mobile and fixed-line licenses by the end of the year, breaking a monopoly of Saudi Telecom …
Interbank rate falls to 8.05 percent
CAIRO: The median overnight interbank rate on the pound dipped to 8.05 percent on Sunday from Thursday s 8.067 percent with no new auctions to affect demand close to the end of a reserve period, traders said. The present period for calculating banks reserves ends on Monday and a new one begins the following day. …
Kuwait's NBK wants to buy Egyptian bank next year
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt: National Bank of Kuwait is looking to buy an Egyptian bank with a strong retail business next year and hopes to push into the United Arab Emirates and Syria soon, its chief executive said on Saturday. Kuwait s largest bank is expected to emerge unscathed from a regional stock market slump and …
Spurring development
CAIRO: Ask any random passer by on an Egyptian street if they are familiar with the name Sawiris, and the answer will be more often than not a definite yes – the name is almost as, if not as, well known as the Mubaraks. The office, from a first impression, is unassuming. Taking a seat …
Forum focuses on unemployment, youth and women
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt: Unemployment, the growing young population and the role of women in society dominated much of the discussion of the World Economic Forum on the Middle East, which moves on to its third and final day today in Sharm El-Sheikh. While carefully skirting around the trickiest regional political issues, the forum focused on …