During Wednesday's opening session, the Egyptian Exchange (EGX) has posted gains of EGP 3.3 billion backed by the Qatari aid seeking to prop up the local currency. The capital market has amounted to EGP 393.794 billion, according to data compiled by Amwal Al Ghad at 11:14 a.m. Cairo time (09:14 GMT). The EGX indices opened in green. The main index, EGX30 climbed by 1.38% to 5884.1 p. EGX20 surged by 1.27% to 6789.72 p. Meanwhile, the mid- and small-cap index, the EGX70 inched up by 0.69% to 504.72 p. Price index EGX100 rose by 0.84% to 847.74 p. This was after trading in 129 listed securities; 6 declined, 92 advanced; while 31 keeping their previous levels. During the opening session, the trading volume has reached 26.136 million securities worth EGP 99.931 million, exchanged 4.007 thousand transactions. EGX's opening gains were backed by Arabs and non-Arab foreigners' buying transactions as they were net buyers seizing 9.65% and 24.56% respectively, of the total markets, with a net equity of EGP 9.703 million and 6.503 million, excluding the deals. Meanwhile, Egyptians were net sellers seizing 65.79% of the total markets, with a net equity of EGP 16.206 million excluding the deals. IMF's $ 4.8 Bln Loan: Yasser Ali, spokesman for President Mohamed Morsi said that Egypt expects a visit from an International Monetary Fund (IMF) technical committee in two to three weeks. "Negotiations with the IMF team will resume from where they stopped," Ali said. Egypt concluded an initial agreement with the IMF on a $4.8 billion loan in November but last month postponed conclusion of the deal because of political unrest set off by Morsi's attempt to fast-track a new constitution. IMF Middle East and Central Asia Director Masood Ahmed met Morsi in Cairo last Monday. Egypt's government must strongly endorse a $4.8 billion IMF loan agreement to its people as a step towards stabilizing an economy pummeled by a turbulent transition from autocratic rule, the head of the world lender said on Tuesday. Qatar Offers Egypt $2.5 Bln To Prop Up Pound Qatar threw Egypt an economic lifeline on Tuesday, announcing it had lent the country another $2 billion and given it an extra $500 million outright to help control a currency crisis. Political strife has set off a rush to convert Egyptian pounds to dollars over the past several weeks, sending the currency to a record low against the U.S. dollar and draining foreign reserves to a critical level. The aid is a political and economic bonus for both President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, the group that propelled him to power in a June election. It eases the pressure on Morsi to negotiate an IMF agreement that will require him to implement unpopular austerity measures. That will be a relief for the Brotherhood as it gears up for forthcoming parliamentary polls. "There was an initial package of $2.5 billion, of which $0.5 billion was a grant and $2 billion a deposit," Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani told reporters, referring to the aid it has provided since Egypt's uprising two years ago. "We discussed transferring one of the deposits into an additional grant so that the grants became $1 billion and the deposits doubled to around $4 billion," he said of the new aid after meeting Morsi. Hamad added that the new Qatari grants and deposits with Egypt's central bank had all arrived. "Some of the final details with the deposits are being worked on with the technical people, but the amount is there," he said.
