The market had buoyant activity through the week ending 5 April, ahead of a long Easter vacation. The CASE30 broke the 7,250 point resistance level and ended the week at 7,281.7 -- 1.2 per cent higher than the previous week. The average daily turnover hovered around LE1 billion despite heavy selling by Arab investors due to declines in their home markets. The market's relatively good performance was supported by anticipation of good financial results for some listed heavyweights, in addition to positive economic indicators. Starting 1 April, a new toll rates were applied on ships passing through the Suez Canal, hiking fees by 2.84 per cent. Furthermore, the drafts of both the 2007/2008 budget and Egypt's five-year plan (2007-2012) were encouraging, with plans to decrease unemployment to five per cent and increase the rate of growth and investments by eight per cent and 25 per cent, respectively. EGYPTIAN COMPANY FOR MOBILE SERVICES (MobiNil)'s dispute with the National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (NTRA) is coming to an end. Egypt's first mobile network operator agreed to suspend offering services based on the EDGE technology starting 15 April. Moreover, it promised to upgrade its network to improve the quality of service within a six-month period. In return, the NTRA approved MobiNil's lifetime validity offer for prepaid card holders, in addition to authorising another one million new numbers for MobiNil. NTRA had recently declined MobiNil's request for the new numbers because the latter's infrastructure could not support extra lines. Meanwhile, the lifetime validity offer was previously rejected because the NTRA considered it a change in the pricing of calls, a move which requires NTRA's preliminary approval. All these new developments came after a meeting between MobiNil's founder and Chairman Naguib Sawiris and Minister of Telecommunication and Information Technology Tarek Kamel. In a news conference following the meeting, MobiNil's CEO Alex Shalaby ruled out the possibility of the company applying for a 3G licence anytime soon, due to its high cost compared to the expected limited demand. ORIENTAL WEAVERS (OW) approved increasing the dividend per share distributed on 2006 profits to LE2.5, compared to the previously suggested LE2 per share. The decision came at OW's general assembly meeting, where shareholders also agreed on spinning off the loss-making Oriental Weavers UK. Details of the deal were not revealed. OW's initial investment in OW UK amounted to 200,000 pounds sterling, and to date the company has accumulated losses exceeding 10 million pounds sterling. ORASCOM TELECOM HOLDING (OTH)'s planned 1:5 stock split was approved by the Capital Market Authority (CMA). This will result in increasing the number of shares from 220 million to 1.1 billion, with a par value of LE1 compared to the current LE5. Moreover, OTH's board of directors is submitting a request to the extraordinary general assembly meeting on 18 April to redeem the treasury shares and Global Depository receipts it bought in the last period. The company's general assembly meeting on 22 January approved a plan to purchase up to five per cent of its outstanding shares over the next 12 months. OTH has already purchased 2.65 million GDRs and 254,707 local shares at an average price of $71.85. RAYA HOLDING'S 2006 fiscal year results showed a 66.6 per cent increase in the company's net profits, to reach LE69.9 million. Raya's board of directors proposed a dividend per share of LE0.4 for FY06, subject to the approval of the General Assembly meeting on 17 April. The company is also selling the remaining 46 per cent it still owns in Raya Telecom to Vodafone Egypt for LE93.6 million. ORASCOM CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRIES (OCI), the regional construction and cement group, witnessed a 57 per cent surge in its net income for fiscal year 2006, to reach LE2.7 billion. Sale revenues from its international activities accounted for 74 per cent of its overall turnover. OCI recorded almost LE14 billion in new contract awards in the Middle East and North Africa region during 2006. Revenues from the cement line business witnessed a huge upturn of 50.2 per cent to reach LE4.948 billion. According to an HC Securities report, the upturn in cement revenues was caused by volume and selling price increases throughout the year. The group's cement sales volume reflected capacity additions and rose by 38 per cent, reaching 13.9 million tonnes. The cement group's capacity reached 21 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) after new capacities became operational in Egypt (1.5 mtpa), northern Iraq (2.3 mtpa) and Pakistan (2.2 mtpa). SUEZ CEMENT, Egypt's largest cement producer with a market share of 32 per cent during 2006, posted a 9.5 per cent decline in its net profits in 2006 to reach LE703 million. Meanwhile, the company's sales increased by 50 per cent through the same period with a value of LE3.54 billion. The upturn is purely attributed to the increase in local and export selling prices, as the total sales volume for the group declined by 1.7 per cent to reach 11.3 million tonnes in 2006 -- down from 11.5 million tonnes in 2005. In addition to a rise in costs due to lower energy subsidies, agreements with the government to limit price increases and collective agreements with labour syndicates to raise salaries, the bottom line was affected by a rise in provisions during the year, as well as a retreat in investment income compared to last year. The investment income was boosted in 2005 when Torah Cement sold its stake in Suez Cement. The company's strategy to focus more on the local market was mirrored in the breakdown of its export figure, which retreated from 29.5 per cent of Egypt's total cement exports to 21.8 per cent in 2006. Compiled by Sherine Abdel-Razek
