No easy business
A new report has found that Egypt reformed its business regulations more than any other country in the Middle East during the year 2007 uptill last June. World Bank affiliate the International Finance Corporation said Egypt was the world##s top reformer of business regulations last year and was again one of the world##s top 10 reformers this year. But the country ranked 114th globally in terms of ease of doing business.
Stable outlook
Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services affirmed its ratings on the Arab Republic of Egypt with a stable outlook, but cautioned that the recent spike in year-on-year consumer price inflation to above 22 percent in July, driven mostly by soaring international commodity prices, could yet bring downward pressure on the rating. The agency has BB foreign currency and BBB- local currency long-term sovereign credit ratings on Egypt
30 wells
Egypt’s Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation and its Tanzanian counterpart have signed an agreement whereby Egypt will extend a $1 million grant to dig 30 water wells in the African State.
Cairo will offer technical assistance and will organise training programmes for Tanzanian cadres, Abu-Zeid said. A delegation of Egyptian experts will visit Tanzania shortly to survey the regions of Kilimanjaro and Lake Manyara where the wells will be dug.
Till next year
The National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) has decided to postpone the auction for the second fixed-line network, which was announced earlier this year, for a year, with a re-examination of offers to take place again next year. A NTRA spokesman said it made the decision after consulting the companies that had expressed interest in bidding for the licence. Some of them, NTRA said, remarked that communication and information technology companies in US and Europe had suffered due to rising prices and inflation, making the companies wary of new overseas investment. Last July the NTRA had postponed the bid deadline for the licence for a second time to 18 September from 29 July, citing turbulent global markets and continuing talks about interconnectivity agreements.
Japanese investment
The Japanese Sumitomo Corporation has begun the establishment of a mega industrial project on an area of 50,600 square metres at the industrial zone of Port Said, for the manufacture and assembly of car spare parts, with investments of up to $50 million over the coming three years. Company officials confirmed their intention to establish a similar project in one of Egypt’s coastal cities, as well as a branch in the free trade zone in the city of Port Said, on an area of 3,500 square meters and at investments totalling $11 million .
Chinese school
A Sino-Egyptian friendship school set up with Chinese grants opened earlier this month in the satellite town of 6 October west of Cairo. Visiting Chinese Vice Minister of Commerce Fu Ziying and Egyptian Minister of International Cooperation Fayza Abul-Naga attended the opening ceremony. The model school, which was established with a four million dollar grant from the Chinese government, will teach Chinese language and history.
Armani villas
Giorgio Armani’s upcoming project with Emaar Properties will be the Armani Residences in Marassi, the Dubai-based developer’s massive master-planned project in Egypt. A $1.74 billion residential development on the north coast, about a two hour drive from Cairo, Marassi will eventually cover more than 1,500 acres and include a marina, golf course, retail space and 3,000 hotel rooms. Armani will “personally design” villas for the project, the first villas to carry the Armani brand. The villas will range from 250 to 500 square metres and each will include a private swimming pool. Armani Residences’ first collaboration with Emaar was a 144-unit project in the Burj Dubai, which is billed as the world’s tallest tower.
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