Arabtec to list in CASE The Dubai-based construction firm Arabtec Holdings plans to offer a stake in its Egyptian unit on the Cairo Stock Exchange (CASE) in 2016 or 2017. The company told Reuters that the planned initial public offering would value the local unit at $10 billion. It aims to invest around $60 billion in Egypt over the next three years in real-estate development, infrastructure, trains, airports, and oil and gas. Arabtec in March finalised a $40 billion deal with the Egyptian army to build one million homes by 2020 on land provided free by Egypt's Armed Forces. A company statement on Monday linked its planned investments in Egypt to last week's presidential election victory by former army chief Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi. “The political stability which will be witnessed in Egypt following the victory of Al-Sisi in the presidential election will boost the company's investment plans in Egypt,” it noted. New tender to buy oil The ministry of petroleum launched a tender to import hundreds of thousands of tons of petroleum products in the third quarter of 2014 to cover increasing energy consumption during the hot summer months. An official from the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) told Reuters that Egypt had launched a tender on Thursday to import 90,000 tons of diesel each in July and August, and 120,000 tons of gasoline and 500,000 tons of diesel in September. The new tender comes to cover the gap still not filled by promised energy supplies from the Gulf countries. Saudi Arabia will deliver energy products to Egypt in July and August as part of the aid package promised after the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013. The head of the EGPC told Reuters in May that Egypt would receive about $650 million to $700 million worth of petroleum aid per month in August, totalling more than $3 billion from April to August. Rates unchanged In its meeting last Thursday, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) opted to keep its key deposit and lending interest rates unchanged at 8.25 per cent and 9.25 per cent, respectively. The decision was unexpected as analysts believe that a reduction in the rates could encourage corporate lending and give economic growth a much-needed boom after three years of sluggish performance. Egypt's GDP rose by 1.2 per cent during the first half of 2013/2014. It seems that the depreciation of the pound, reaching LE7.1 to the dollar recently, together with high inflation, expected to return to double digits this summer, have pressured the Central Bank to keep interest rates high. “The downside risks to domestic GDP combined with the negative output gap since 2011 will limit upside risks to the inflation outlook,” the Central Bank said in a statement. “Given the mixed balance of risks surrounding the inflation and GDP outlooks at this juncture, the MPC (monetary policy committee) judges that the current key CBE rates are appropriate,” it added. The CBE also kept its deposit and lending rates unchanged at its last meeting on 28 April.
