CAIRO: Investors waiting for the right moment to return to Egypt are focusing more on when and whether elections happen than the kind of parliament and government they bring, the head of the country's stock exchange said on Tuesday. Egypt's stock market shut for more than seven weeks when a popular uprising in January sparked a stock market rout and sent foreign investors dashing for cover. The benchmark EGX30 index is still down 39 percent this year due to expectations that the economic downturn which followed the overthrow of president Hosni Mubarak will depress Egyptian company earnings. Social unrest and uncertainty over a promised transition to democratic, civilian government have caused foreigners to pull LE 3.6 billion ($603 million) out of local equities since the uprising, bourse officials say. Trading volume was depressed for months on the Egyptian Exchange, but Chairman Mohamed Omran said positive signs had appeared. Parliamentary elections are due to begin on Nov. 28. "I have seen some slight improvement in the participation of foreign investors in the Egyptian market especially after the parliamentary election opened the door for candidates to apply," Omran told the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit. He said his recent meetings with bankers from J.P. Morgan, Merrill Lynch and others showed there was a positive view towards Egypt's economy but politics still represented the biggest obstacle. "It's about sticking to the timeframe (for elections)," Omran said. "Success there will bring us halfway, especially if the supreme army council follows with more commitments on a tentative timeframe for presidential elections." What did not seem to be a major concern, he said, were the actual results of the polls. Attention has focused on the prospects for conservative religious parties long excluded from formal politics to sweep Egypt's first democratic polls in decades. Investors "are just talking about peaceful elections and what goes on the ground ... I don't think economic policy will be much different from before, although there might be more concentration on inequality, fighting corruption and poverty," said Omran. Foreigners have switched to being net buyers in the last couple of weeks and the "trend is in the right direction" said Omran. "They put in some positions, not in an aggressive way, but across the board."
