Increasing individuals’ awareness about cybersecurity threats and enacting strong legal frameworks is crucial in safeguarding the financial and banking sectors. This is especially important in developing economies and emerging markets, such as Egypt. During GITEX Africa 2023, the continent’s biggest tech event, a panel discussion took place about unlocking the full potential of African countries for a successful digital transformation. The three-day event concluded on June 2nd in Marrakech, Morocco, to promote inclusive and comprehensive technological advancement. During a panel discussion titled “Making our Money Safe” the Chief Technical Officer of Cyber Resilience at DELL, Ravi Baldev, emphasized the importance…
Author: Doaa A.Moneim
In their pursuit of digital transformation, Africa’s private sector is developing at a fast pace. The public sector must keep up to meet the demands for streamlined, efficient, and user-friendly services. By prioritizing citizen experience, government agencies can optimize the use of public funds and invest in digital solutions, industry leaders told Business Monthly during the GITEX Africa conference, which was held in Marrakech, Morocco from May 31 to June 2nd. AI in business With robust infrastructure and innovative projects in the continent, opportunities for digital transformation are significant, Senior Vice-President for Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East, Turkey, and…
Egypt’s Supreme Council for Investments announced on May 16 a slew of incentives and administrative reforms in a bid to boost Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) as the country races to meet its commitment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and tackle the major shortage of hard currency. The Supreme Council for Investment, chaired by Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, promulgated 22 draft resolutions that address issues foreign investors face in the local market; including easing the procedures of establishing new companies, streamlining the use of electronic signature, allowing foreigners to possess properties without limits and lowering the restrictions regarding lands…
On Thursday, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) decided to maintain current key interest rates. That said, the overnight deposit rate, overnight lending rate, main operation rate, and discount rate were kept unchanged at to 18.25%, 19.2 %, 18.75%, and 18.75% respectively. MPC attributed its decision to the ease of inflation on global and domestic levels, despite the decline in real GDP growth in the country. In this regard, MPC explained that Egypt’s real GDP growth declined to 3.9% in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2022, down from 4.4% in Q3 of 2022, which…
Egypt is ramping up efforts to meet promises it made to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) regarding the sale of state-owned companies through the government’s initial public offering (IPO) or via assigning several companies to strategic investors under its $3 billion loan program with the fund. The North African country has less than a month to meet commitments to secure $2-2.5 billion from the sale of state-owned companies, as the first review of the loan deal is expected to be rolled out by mid-June. This has placed counted tension on a country trying to sail ashore amid a formidable economic…
In just two weeks, Egypt saw the second downgrade of its credit rating amid a troubled economy grappled with soaring inflation and a severely weakened currency. Credit rating downgrade On Friday, one of the major global credit rating agencies, Fitch Ratings, revised Egypt’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to ‘B’ from ‘B+’, switching its outlook to Negative. This is the first downgrade Fitch applies in almost a decade. Prior to that, Standard & Poor’s (S&P) revised Egypt’s credit outlook from stable to negative in April and affirmed the country’s ‘B/B’ long and short-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit…
Egypt is currently struggling to fulfill the commitments it pledged to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under the Fund’s Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program it had approved for the country in December 2022 amid various economic challenges faced by the North-African country. “Egypt has to do more in terms of the reforms it commits under the loan program. The private sector must play a greater role, the local currency must be liberalized more and the interest rates must be further flexible. These are key challenges Egypt needs to navigate on its way to the first review. What has been done…
Multiple private banks in Egypt, including Commercial International Bank (CIB), QNB Al Ahli, and Arab Investment Bank (AIB), have issued three-year Certificates of Deposit (CDs) with yields ranging between 19% and 22%, as a bid to absorb liquidity from the local market to tame inflation. The CDs are offered with various maturities and disbursement plans. Egypt, which is suffering a shortage in the US dollar liquidity and a $17 billion financing gap through the second half of FY2026/2027, has been taking several actions to curb elevating inflation. The North-African country has devaluated the local currency, continuously raised key interest rates,…
The Egyptian pound is expected to further slump against the US dollar, crossing the 35-threshold throughout April, amid a notable activity of the hard currency in the parallel market, two experts told Business Monthly. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) raised last week key interest rates by 2% (200 bps) to 18.25%, 19.25%, 18.75%, and 18.75% for overnight deposit rate, overnight lending rate, main operation rate, and discount rate, respectively. The action, which meant to curb the elevating inflation, came amid wide expectations that the CBE could introduce more devaluation to the Egyptian pound…
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will conduct its first review of Egypt’s Extended Fund Facility (EFF) loan program on Wednesday, March 15, 2023. If the Fund’s executive board approves the review’s results, Egypt would receive the second tranche of the $3 billion loan set under the program. This tranche brings the total amount Egypt would receive to $750 million, the amount the IMF set for Egypt to receive in the current FY2022/2023 that ends by June-end. Business Monthly sheds light on the most crucial actions Egypt has taken since the IMF approved the EFF loan program in December 2022, and…