Egypt’s natural gas imports from Israel have dropped 19% to 650 million cfd on Monday after Chevron Corp. was instructed by Israeli energy ministry to shut down the Tamar natural gas field.

The Egyptian parliament’s Transport Committee approved a draft bill allowing Egypt’s Transport Ministry to hand AD Ports a USD200 million 30-year concession to build, manage, operate, and maintain a multipurpose terminal at the Red Sea port of Safaga.

Egypt's wheat imports jumped by c. 30% during 9M2023, reaching 8.34 million tons, compared to 6.43 million tons in the same period of the previous year.

Trade deficit declined during July 2023 to USD2.93 billion, compared to USD3.82 billion for the same month of the previous year, a decrease of 23.2% YoY, mainly due to a drop in imports by 17% YoY to USD6 billion.

Officials from Egypt and Turkey’s central banks will meet next week to discuss using local currencies in bilateral trade.

Maersk and the government are in the final stages of agreeing on the value of the 51% stake of the 545-MW Zafarana wind farm.

The Ministry of Transportation is negotiating with Siemens on the local manufacturing of 14 railcars of freight shipping.

The government announced a new initiative for the food and beverage sector in which goods will be sold at a discount ranging from 10%-25%. These goods include rice, sugar, dairy products, live and processed poultry, and other grains.

OLFI announced yesterday that they will take part in the initiative by applying a 10-15% discount on all their products.

JUFO is also expected to take part in the initiative. However, the dedicated volumes and discount rates are not disclosed yet, with expectations to match OLFI's but on specific products and not their whole product range.

POUL does not expect to implement any discounts on the live bird segments; however, a slight discount might be implemented on Koki's products with a specific volume.

It is not clear how the initiative will affect SUGR; however, we believe the effect will take place on the companies to which they supply and not directly on SUGR.

The duration of the initiative and the dedicated volumes from companies to it will play an important factor on the effect on their profitability. F&B players have been witnessing a shrinkage in volumes and margins since the beginning of 2023 and were mainly supported by their rising prices. The discounts implemented are expected to partially offset the previous waves of prices increase and pressure margins amid rising raw materials costs. These discounts are expected to be in return for making foreign currency more available and no ports or customs delay, which might reduce costs slightly if implemented.

More banks in Egypt have stopped the use of EGP debit cards outside the country.

Orascom Pyramids Entertainment, OIH’s subsidiary, is going to launch Hadbet El Haram project by 1Q24, with an expected investment of EGP1 billion.

ALCN (FV: EGP30.58, EW) released FY22/23 financial results:
•Net profit recorded EGP1.2 billion (+57.0% YoY, -14.3% QoQ) in 4Q22/23. The sequential decline is attributed to the strong base effect of the EGP222 million FX gain in 3Q22/23, while the annual increase in bottom-line came backed by the trickling down from high revenues and high interest income. 
•On annual basis, bottom-line recorded EGP4.4 billion in FY22/23 (+116.4% YoY). driven by an increase in EGP-denominated revenue per container and USD-denominated revenue per container and number of containers. 
•We upgrade our FV to EGP30.58/share, maintaining our EW recommendation.
• ALCN is trading at FY23/24f P/E of 7.7x

TAQA and Raya Holding subsidiary Aman have finished setting up their fintech company Aman Taqa Electronic Payments.

ACAMD Board approved purchasing treasu