CAIRO: A walk past the rows of repair shops and auto parts vendors that line the streets of Marouf, a neighborhood in downtown Cairo, is all it takes to tell that small business is central to the Egyptian economy.
Now, as with most business, (...)
CAIRO: Officially, the theme was trade between Egypt and Germany. A German-Arab commerce group sponsored the talk. Yet there was relatively little mention of Germany.
At a business lunch Tuesday, Trade Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid outlined (...)
CAIRO: The Ministry of Trade and Industry on Sunday announced it would ban cement exports for four months as competition regulators investigate the sector.
Cement prices have risen in Egypt despite recent attempts to ease them. Explanations, (...)
CAIRO: Was the ritzy, superlative-laden allure of Dubai too good to be true? Ask Ismail Farid.
Farid, 31, was working in the marketing branch of Coldwell Banker in the United Arab Emirates last November when he caught wind that his department's (...)
CAIRO: While it is billion-dollar deals that have garnered private equity managers their reputations as masters of the universe, not all of them are thinking quite so large.
Sphinx Private Equity Management, a subsidiary of private equity firm (...)
CAIRO: Before it was swept up by the nationalist wave that brought Gamal Abdel Nasser to power, Egypt's wine industry was run largely by khawagas - or, less colloquially, foreigners.
In 1963, however, authorities nationalized Al-Ahram Beverages (...)
CAIRO: Arab Misr Insurance Group, a subsidiary of the Gulf Insurance Company of Kuwait, will begin to offer micro-insurance for Egypt's poor and middle class within two months, pending the approval of Egyptian regulators, according to the company's (...)
CAIRO: Egypt's still-nascent insurance market faces, among other challenges, poor highway safety, an outdated pension system and low awareness among the nation's poor and middle class, according to panelists speaking at the Euromoney Egypt Insurance (...)
CAIRO: Across the Atlantic, fast food companies - or, in the industry's preferred jargon, "quick service restaurants - have been among the few to find an upside to the global recession. Quarter-pounders and French fries fit into slimmer budgets (...)
CAIRO: Situated on the seventh floor of a Corniche-side building in Agouza, there is little to distinguish Enmaa Financial Service s office from the apartments next door - apart from a tiny plastic sign above the doorbell.
The wealth consultancy (...)
CAIRO: The economic crisis may mean that protectionism is the order of the day for many nations, but outsourcing and immigration are nevertheless bound to rise, owing to advances in transport, communications and other technology, according to a (...)
CAIRO: By the time Egypt's rice export ban is over, it will have lasted at least three times longer than was first announced.
This week, the Ministry of Trade and Industry announced its ban on all types of rice will expire in October. The (...)
CAIRO: The state will announce the winner of a bid to develop the Northwest Gulf of Suez Economic Zone in the next few days, according to local papers quoting the Minister of Investment Mahmoud Mohieldin and other officials speaking on (...)
CAIRO: Egypt s central bank injected $1 billion into the interbank market on Sunday in an effort to bolster the Egyptian pound against the US dollar after the pound slid to its weakest rate against the greenback since July 2007, according to local (...)
CAIRO: The British airline BMI is relatively new to the Middle East. After acquiring British Mediterranean, a franchise of their main competitor British Airways, in late 2007, the carrier has expanded into markets like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, (...)
CAIRO: A fire broke out on Ramses Street near al-Is'af Square late Saturday afternoon, spewing plumes of acrid black smoke into the streets of downtown Cairo.
Witnesses and emergency workers said the fire began between 3 pm and 4:30 pm due to an (...)
CAIRO: The Egyptian fertilizer industry, among this country's least glamorous but most important, is about to become a bit more diverse.
Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif approved a batch of licenses this week, allowing 10 companies to produce (...)
CAIRO: When things look up, gold goes down.
Since the economic crisis deepened last fall this has mostly held true, including this Tuesday when gold slipped below $900 per ounce, down from a six-month high of about $993 per ounce last month, (...)
CAIRO: Urban inflation fell to 13.5 percent in February, down from 14.4 percent the month before, the state statistics agency CAPMAS announced yesterday.
Nationwide inflation edged to 14.2, up from 14 percent.
The decline in urban inflation (...)
CAIRO: The market for Egyptian cotton, the legendary commodity that enriched Muhammad Ali-era pashas and fueled the growth of a sizeable textile industry last century, is not what it used to be.
A British Economist Intelligence Unit report said (...)
CAIRO: If he had been asked to address the same room just one year earlier, his theme would have been "how to turn sand into gold, said Sven-Olaf Vathje, managing director of the Boston Consulting Group's Dubai offices, during a lecture at the (...)
CAIRO: Local steel companies cut their prices by between LE 300 and LE 550 per ton this week in response to tumbling global prices and the continuing threat of Turkish and Ukrainian imports.
Al Ezz Steel, the country's dominant steelmaker, (...)
CAIRO: Responding to local investors' long-running push to introduce a broader index to the Egyptian Stock Exchange, officials this week launched the EGX 70 to complement the traditional benchmark EGX 30, formerly known as the CASE 30.
Many (...)
CAIRO: "There is a word coined in the United States - if you were 'Bangalored' it means you lost your job, said Ramachandara Seshagiri, president of Hitork, an Indian gears and gear parts-maker, addressing an audience of Egyptian businessmen on (...)
MINYA: As 13 European ambassadors filed off their bus here on Sunday they were greeted by a burst of music. A troupe of local farmers, equipped with horns and drums, had gathered to welcome them to a field on the edge of this Upper Egyptian town, (...)