Entering Egypt’s banking sector has long been a challenging proposition. The large number of domestic players serving a bankable population limited by low salaries and high informal employment has left the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) reluctant to license new lenders. The last major alteration to the sector’s ownership came in 2004, when the Central...
THE COMPANY: Madinet Nasr for Housing & Development (MNHD) was established in 1959 by governmental decree to develop present-day Nasr City. The company also operates in construction works through two subsidiaries: El Nasr Utilities, 95% owned, and Nasr Company for Civil Works, 52% owned. Over the...
Ever since it was opened in 1879, the Suez Canal has been the most important transport artery in Egypt and a lynchpin of the global economic system – some 10% of world trade passes through the canal each year. As such, the canal is a major revenue earner for the government, with toll fees totalling $5.1bn in 2012, roughly a 10th of the country’s...
The government’s attempts to meet Egypt’s budgetary shortfalls have comprised three broad strands: the sale of government bonds in the domestic market, securing sovereign grants from friendly nations, and attempting to secure a financing package through the IMF, which could help open the door to additional developmental aid from international...
Effectively priced out of the international bond market, the Ministry of Finance has been compelled to turn to the domestic banking sector to meet the demands of the state budget. For local banks faced with reduced borrowing demand, the easy yield offered by a steady supply of treasury bills (T-bills) represents an attractive route to growth....
One big factor that contributed to the 2011 revolution in Egypt was the increasing sense of alienation and disempowerment felt by the country’s poor, who in Egypt tend to be concentrated in rural districts away from the main urban centres of Cairo and Alexandria. As a result, in recent years there has been a growing recognition of the role that...
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