Egypt sees high-speed rail study ready in 2 months Egypt expects an Egyptian-Italian feasibility study for a high-speed railway line between Cairo and Alexandria to be ready in two months, the country s transport minister said on Tuesday. We should get the results in the next two months. Our feeling is that it s feasible, Mohamed Mansour told Reuters on the sidelines of a Mediterranean economic forum in Milan. Once the study is completed Egypt will proceed with the tendering of the project to the private sector. It will be a public tender open to all investors, he said. In May, Mansour and his Italian counterpart Altero Matteoli earmarked ?550,000 ($781,300) for the study, carried out by technical staff from Egypt and Italian state-owned railway company, Ferrovie dello Stato. (Ferrovie dello Stato unit) Italferr is doing the study to tell us the route that (the line) will take, the number of passengers and also the cost of the investment, the minister said. Egypt would probably tender the project to build a motorway between Cairo and Alexandria in the next two or three months, Mansour said. The World Bank s private sector arm IFC had been appointed as lead advisor for the project so that it will be tendered in a transparent fashion, he said. The Egyptian capital Cairo and its Mediterranean port city of Alexandria are about 200 km apart. -Reuters Egyptian stock exchange rebalances indexes The Egyptian stock exchange said on Wednesday it had changed the composition of the benchmark EGX 30 index, replacing seven companies with firms including real estate developer Palm Hills. In an emailed statement, the stock exchange said the seven companies removed from the EGX 30 were moved to the broader EGX 70 index, which was also reshuffled. Following are the firms added to the EGX 30: Palm Hills, Upper Egypt Contracting, Egyptian Electrical Cables, Alexandria Spinning and Weaving, Extracted Oils, Egyptian Resorts, Nile Cotton and Ginning. The companies removed from the index: Asek Mining, Naeem Holdings, Egyptian Financial and Industrial, Egypt Transport, Heliopolis Housing, Medinet Nasr Housing, Olympic Group. -Reuters Egypt Citadel says Taqa Arabia near Libya gas deal Cairo-based private equity firm Citadel Capital said a gas firm in which its has invested is in final negotiations with a joint venture partner on a contract in Libya, Citadel said on Wednesday. The ?118 million ($167.6 million) contract is to develop gas distribution networks in Libya. Taqa Arabia owns 49 percent of the joint venture Arab Gas Company that won the dealt. The Libyan Social Economic Development Fund owns the majority 51 percent. Draft contracts for the award are in the final stages of procedural reviews, Citadel said in a statement. A Citadel spokeswoman said that the company and its partners together owned a majority stake in the Taqa Arabia. Citadel typically takes a 10 percent to 20 percent in companies in which it invests, she said. The contract would connect 370,000 households in Tripoli, Benghazi and Misrata, Citadel said last month. -Reuters Beltone: Egypt s cos to post sequentially better Q2 results Beltone Financial said almost all Egyptian companies should see sequentially improved second-quarter results, reflecting the return of consumers to the market and an improvement in general business sentiment. Half-year results for many Egyptian companies will show a fall in profits on a year-over-year basis, but this is a fact which the market has already discounted, Beltone said in a pre-earnings report on Egypt s banking, consumer goods, construction and telecoms sectors. The investment bank, however, said Egypt s National Societe Generale Bank should do better in the second quarter on a year-over-year basis, aided by provisions reversed and a sharp rise in investment income. Beltone said its long-term outlook was positive on the Egyptian banking sector. We are still positive about the sector s performance and believe that the potential for its growth is significant, despite our expectation of slower balance sheet growth going forward, compared to the last few years, affected by the overall level of economic activity, it added. On the consumer goods/leisure & services sector, the investment bank said certain companies in this space had witnessed a gradual improvement in unit sales - a trend that continued into the second quarter with sales in each month since March seeing rises from the preceding month. This should be evident when GB Auto, Olympic Group and Oriental Weavers Carpet Co publish their first-half results, Beltone said. The investment bank also expects the construction and building materials companies it covers to maintain an overall good performance in the second quarter as construction activity in Egypt remained robust during the period. Beltone expects Orascom Construction Industries to post sequentially higher second-quarter results due to the cyclical nature of the business. On Egypt s telecommunications sector, Beltone said despite the economic slowdown, free cash flow remains strong for the local operators, namely Orascom Telecom, Mobinil and Telecom Egypt, with expectations of healthy dividends at year end 2009. -Reuters General Dynamics receives $45 mln Army contract General Dynamics Corp. said Tuesday the Army will pay it $45 million for technical assistance with a program that makes the M1A1 tank in Egypt. Besides technical assistance, General Dynamics Land Systems will supply the US Tacom Lifecycle Management Command with tools, gauges, fixtures and machines for the co-production project. Work on the parts will be done in Sterling Heights, Mich., with completion set for December 2012. In afternoon trading, shares of General Dynamics fell 15 cents to $54.32. -AP Dutch DB Schenker sets joint venture in Egypt DB Schenker, part of German rail and logistics group Deutsche Bahn, and its partner ITS International Transport Service established a new joint venture in Egypt, Transport Intelligence reported. The newly-established company is a further hub within DB Schenker s worldwide network and is expected to enable Schenker to provide better, high quality end-to-end solutions across the entire process chain in promising growth market. DB Schenker also founded its own company in Saudi Arabia earlier this year and before that, a joint venture in Dubai. -IntelliNews
