Dr Ahmed Al Beltagy, head of energy sector, at the European Commission to Cairo, said the EU has approved allocating $304 million to finance the energy sector in Egypt. About $ 60 million had been allocated for restructuring Egypt's energy sector, said Al Beltagy, elucidating that the fund aims to restructure the sector's institutional structure and to resume the energy ventures and improve their quality. He added that the EU also provided $ 2 million to the German Aid Agency (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit- GIZ) to finance the main plan for the new and renewable energy ventures. Mr. Ahmed Al Beltagy has elaborated that the union also approved a $ 100 million grant to fund the new and renewable energy generation projects, like the plant of generating energy from the wind at 200 megawatt in Gabal Elzeit area, and another project in east Suez Gulf.  Moreover, it includes a project of establishing a plant for generating electricity from the sun in Combo City, Aswan, by the system of CBS. More»

The Red Sea Ports Authority has accredited EGP 50 million as an increase for the development work the Port of Nuweiba to become EGP 220 million total costs. Eng. Hussein Abo Al Wafa, a director, at the project of Nuweiba Port, said the approved cost of the development is EGP 170 million; adding that the authority called for an increase of EGP 50 million for the development work due to raising the price of dollar in return for the Egyptian pound. And then the total costs of the project reached EGP 220 million. He referred that the development work in the project represents in establishing 3 new terminals and a parking for the trucks and another parking for the cars and taxis; mentioning that the first parking will be inaugurated on June 23rd. The work in the parking, which is for the trucks, was finished at EGP 90 million total costs. More»

Eng. Khaled Abdul-Badie – the vice chairman of the state-run Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) – said on Tuesday the results of the bid to import Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) are not disclosed yet, noting that the winning companies will be announced very soon. This comes after EGAS has reviewed all the offers submitted by multiple companies to import the LNG. EGAS’s tender is targeting the import of 1 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas, in order to keep power stations running in Egypt. EGAS has issued a tender to satisfy the Local Market demand for natural gas and minimize the use of liquid fuels (Gas oil, Fuel oil and LPG). Meanwhile, the vice chairman further stated that only two firms, Citadel Capital (CCAP.CA) - the leading investment company in Africa and the Middle East with US$ 9.5 billion in investments under control; and Royal Dutch Shell Plc will likely be competing for winning the EGAS’s tender to import the LNG for Egypt. More»

Galal El Zorba, President of the Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI), has officially announced taking retirement, elaborating that he wouldn't run for the new term 2013. He also asserted that the Egyptian businessmen Hassan Malek, Safwan Sabet and Mohamed Al-Swedy have no intent to run for chairing the FEI, and all the chambers were informed with this in order not to send their names for the Egyptian Minister of Industry. It is worth mentioning that Galal El Zorba is the board's chairman of "Nile Clothing Company", and also he had been chairing the FEI for 6 years. Meanwhile, Safwan Sabet is head of Juhayna Group, and he was the former chairman of the food industries chamber. He is now a member of the FEO, while Mohamed Al-Swedy is deputy chairman of the FEI. As to Hassan Malek, he is the chairman of EBDA, the Egyptian Business Development Association. The EBDA is one of the non-governmental associations that its activity focuses on the business community. Malek is a member of Islamic Countries Youth Entrepreneurship Network (ICYEN). More»

The volume of the Egyptian imports of Chinese ready-made garments amounted to EGP 453 million from January to March 2013, in return for EGP 2.5 billion in 2012. According to sources in the Foreign Trade sector to "Amwal Al Ghad", the Egyptian imports of ready-made garments at this period decreased by EGP 600 million, as they recorded EGP 800 million during the first quarter of 2013, compared to EGP 1.4 billion during the first quarter of 2012. The source added that the decline of the domestic demand on the imported ready-made garments due to several factors like the increase of the dollar price, consequently the prices of the imports rose, in addition to the decline of the citizen's living standards. More»

Arqaam Capital ("Arqaam"), the specialist emerging markets investment bank, today announced that it acted as the exclusive financial adviser to Cairo-based Magrabi Retail ("Magrabi") in the purchase of a controlling stake in the Turkish optical retailer, Şişli Optik Ticaret A.Ş. This transaction marks Magrabi Retail's first acquisition, outside the MENA region, and the start of a strategic initiative to expand into select emerging markets. The additional Sisli stores will now see the network expand to a total of over 160 retail outlets, across ten countries. Advised by Arqaam, Magrabi participated in a competitive bidding process and successfully progressed the Transaction to closing, having secured favorable terms. Arqaam provided M&A advisory services, as well as assisted in raising acquisition financing for the transaction. Riad Meliti, Chief Executive Officer of Arqaam, stressed the role Arqaam played in the acquisition: "As an emerging markets investment bank, we specialize in facilitating capital flows into rapidly growing and dynamic markets, such as Turkey. Our understanding of both the local market and the dynamics of emerging countries has allowed us to assist Magrabi Retail, in growing beyond the MENA region." More»

 The Former Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamed, said that the Sukuk (Islamic Bonds) didn't succeed in Malaysia due to the low incomes of the Muslims in Malaysia, as well as remove any suspicion of usury and to commit to the Islam's principles. Mahathir, during his speech in "Experiments Renaissance" conference that organized by the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP),  said Egypt is facing triple challenges and problems than that were existed in Malaysia before achieving renaissance, because the population in Egypt is triple. But Egypt has capabilities for achieving real renaissance. Mahatir also referred that the Egyptian government should provide job opportunities for the youth and decrease the poverty rates and unemployment as well; stressing that this is the biggest challenge for the Egyptian government now. More»

Mahathir Mohamed, Former Malaysian Prime Minister, nominates the industry sector to start a real renaissance in Egypt and to attract more investments; referring that his country was capable to go the biggest economic entities through large industrial castle before speaking about the small and medium entrepreneurs. Mahathir was wondering how to talk about small and medium entrepreneurs without having big entities that support these entrepreneurs technologically and vocationally. During his participation in “Experiments Renaissance”, Mahathir explained that they started to build their country step by step, in that way the industry will be developed simultaneously with developing the human cadres' skills. Malaysia succeeded in attracting many foreign investments, because its economy doesn't depend on tax collection only, moreover, concentrating on the industry and employing all the youth. More»

Dr Yasser Ali, Head of the Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC), an affiliate of the Egyptian Cabinet, expected that the power crisis could increase within the coming ten years from 24% to 35%. Ali has called for reconsidering Egypt's external agreements that concern exporting the natural gas, along with completely developing the institutional and legislative fundaments that organized for the new and renewable sector. During his keynote in the conference "Deepening Local Manufacturing of Green Technologies", Yasser Ali said that although Egypt has plenty wealth of the non-renewable energy, but it needs support and depending on the renewable and green energy resources within few years. More»

Rear Adm. Adel Yassin Hamad, Chairman of Alexandria port, has stated that the Ministry of Transport will finish within days the specifications of a tender for "pier 100" inside Alexandria Port; expecting that the pier will be offered at EGP 3 billion at the end of May. The pier's length is 1350 meters and 16 meters in depth, while the executive arena is 360.000 meters. The pier will receive the fourth-generation vessels. On the same context, Hamad said the authority will cooperate with the Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University, to set the specifications for expanding "pier90/1" 370 meters in length and 20 meters in depth besides storage space reaches 110.000 meters; expecting that the venture's cost is EGP 3 billion. Hamad elaborated that the authority is studying the implementation of two multi-purposes plants in Alexandria and El-Dekheila ports at total investments EGP 5 billion during the fiscal year 2013-2014. More»