Vodafone Egypt, the country's largest mobile carrier, said on Sunday it was negotiating a 4 billion Egyptian pound ($560 million) credit line with a consortium of seven banks. "The company is currently in the process of completion of the signing of a credit facility contract," a spokeswoman said via email. The participating banks are Banque Misr, Commercial International Bank(CIB), AlexBank, HSBC, Barclays Bank, Emirates NBD and QNB Bank. Vodafone Egypt, majority owned by British mobile operator Vodafone, is the leading communications player by customer numbers in the country of 86 million. It is also 45-percent owned by fixed-line telecoms firm Telecom Egypt . The spokeswoman did not say how the cash would be used but Egyptian financial newspaper al-Borsa said it would go towards modernising the company's network and improving services in the face of regular power blackouts. Egypt is facing its worst energy crisis in decades, with low production and high power consumption, resulting in regular power cuts that have hit private companies, particularly in the industrial sector.
