Egypt's initial public offering (IPO) programme is proceeding according to its schedule and is expected to start offering 10 percent of the shares of Heliopolis Co. for Housing and Development within the first quarter of 2020, said Public Business Sector Minister Hesham Tawfik on Sunday. This came during the Chief Executives conference, which was held Sunday, under the title The challenges of a low-interest economy, where the minister affirmed that the only offering made under the programme demonstrated the investors' appetite to invest, according to Egypt Today. By the end of February, Egypt floated a stake of Eastern Company on EGX, and the public and private offerings on the course were completed Wednesday, March 6, with a total value of 1.72 billion pounds. In 2018, Egypt delayed listing shares of state-owned companies on the Egyptian Exchange, such as the 4.5 percent stake of Eastern Company slated for October. The government attributed the delay to volatility in the global market, noting that if the shares had been floated, they would have failed to be covered at proper valuation. In 2016, Egypt announced the launch of the government's IPO programme offering shares over three to five years in several state-owned companies in fields such as petroleum, services, chemicals, and real estate. As part of the economic reform program, the government targets offering 15-30 percent of stakes in state-owned companies on the stock exchange (EGX) to increase funding to Egyptian companies, maximize the benefit from state assets, and attract local and foreign capital flows to Egypt. "The most important thing after reducing interest rates is to organize the private sector in the form of institutional entities and enable the sector's institutions to manage their affairs," Tawfik stated. The minister stated that the regulation of the private sector's work will serve small and medium enterprises. He also stressed that the interest rate in Egypt is still high, or rather the highest in the world. Furthermore, the minister explained that reducing interest rates is not the only catalyst to attracting and increasing the volume of investments in Egypt, and there is still the ability to further reduce interest rates. He pointed out that there is a great opportunity for electric cars in Egypt, especially that the European market is close to canceling the use of fuel in the near future, noting that negotiations with the Chinese side are going well and contacts are being made with the officials to find out their assessment of the visit that was made on Wednesday. Tawfik discussed during his visit to Beijing in September the cooperation opportunities between Egypt and China in the field of manufacturing electric cars.
