One-on-One in Sharm IN AN ATTEMPT to attract greater investments to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, EFG-Hermes this week held its Seventh Annual One-on- One conference in Sharm El-Sheikh. The four-day event is a forum where international institutional investors come to meet senior executives from the MENA region's top companies. Some 45 companies from the banking, construction, building materials, real estate and telecommunications sectors were represented at the conference to promote their attractiveness to investors. "Institutional investors across the region are aware of how attractive the MENA region's fundamentals remain," said EFG-Hermes Securities Brokerage Managing Director Sherif Cararah in a press release. "No region is immune from the global economy's marked deterioration, but the overall outlook for the MENA region is among the world's most solid," he added. Never stop talking EGYPTIANS are avid phone talkers, and the figures are living proof. Recent statistics released by the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) show that mobile phone subscribers reached 43 million at the end of 2008, indicating a 43 per cent growth from 2007. This has resulted in 57.2 per cent mobile phone penetration. This is attributed to the fact that the cost of using mobile phones does not surpass $3.62 per month, among the lowest rates worldwide. Egyptians are also no less enthusiastic about using the Internet. According to MCIT, 2008 saw a 19 per cent growth in the number of Internet surfers surging to 12.6 million. In fact, according to International Telecommunication Union (ITU) figures, Egypt came first among Arab countries with regards to the number of Internet users, fixed line subscribers and the annual growth rate of mobile phone users. The whole information and communication technology (ICT) sector saw exponential growth of 20 per cent over the past three years, attracting some $8 billion in investments. And the financial crisis is not expected to dampen that growth. MCIT forecasts growth to continue in 2009 at rates between 15 and 20 per cent. These figures were released on the fringes of the Seventh World Telecommunication/ICT indicators meeting held recently in Cairo. The meeting, which took place for the first time outside Geneva, Switzerland, was organised by the Telecommunication Development Bureau of the International Telecommunication Union and hosted by MCIT. Partnering with IMC THE INDUSTRIAL Modernisation Centre (IMC) is currently in the process of inviting institutional investors to subscribe to a fund worth LE250 million, whose resources will be utilised to help finance industrial companies. According to Adham Nadim, executive director of IMC, the fund is jointly established by IMC along with Commercial International Bank and CI Capital Holding. The target of the fund is to help industrial companies whose financing needs range between LE15 million and LE100 million. "The IMC's participation in this fund aims to reassure other investors in the fund that their money will be placed into real projects," said Nadim. He added that this fund is an additional source of financing for companies. "The fund will be more flexible in approving credit than a bank where procedures might be more complicated," he pointed out, explaining that the fund's stakeholders, in approving credit for a certain company, will by default become a shareholder in that company. The IMC plans to launch a second and third fund in the near future.
