Egypt’s business digest June 28

International Cooperation Minister Sahar Nasr has been selected by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to be a deputy of the Board of Governors director in 2016/2017.

 

Egypt became an EBRD recipient country in October 2015; the bank’s forecast for the country’s real GDP growth in 2017 is 4.2%.

 

 

Investment agreements signed by the Petroleum Ministry in the past two years with international companies operating in the field of oil and gas have amounted to $14.340 billion, according to a Tuesday statement by the ministry.

 

A total of 67 agreements have been signed by June; the ministry had signed no agreements for three years before that.

 

 

About $120 million will be pumped into banks operating in the domestic market by the Central Bank of Egypt after merging the three weekly tenders into one every Tuesday. CBE pumped $33 billion in five months for import purposes.

 

 

The value-added tax will be applied starting from September after the parliament passes it; the total tax revenues expected for the fiscal year 2016/2017 range between 20-25 billion EGP, Finance Minister Amr al-Garhy told Youm7 Monday.

 

The Ordinary and Extraordinary General Assembly of Beltone Financial Holding has approved trade-off contract with Orascom Telecom on the acquisition of 100% of the total shares of Arab Finance at a cost of 23 million EGP, according to a Tuesday statement by Beltone.

 

A similar contract has been approved to acquire 70% of the shares of Reefy for micro projects at a cost of 105 million EGP.

 

 

Small and micro projects represent 95% of the private sector in Egypt in terms of the number of projects, and they have a faster ability to create job opportunities and a bigger capacity to grow, said Amr Aboul Azm, deputy head of the Micro Projects Services Development.

 

However, only 10% of Egyptians have bank accounts, which means that their chances in obtaining bank finances are very low, he told Youm7.