CAIRO - Local and Arab buying lifted Egyptian stocks amid low volumes on Thursday, traders said. News that the Egyptian Government has dropped plans to levy a tax on share dividends boosted trading, they added. Locals and Arabs made net purchases worth LE37.6 million ($6.3 million) and LE4.6 million, according to Bourse data. Non-Arab investors made net sell-offs worth LE42.2 million. Volume totalled LE551 million, according to Bourse data. The country's benchmark index EGX 30 gained 1.25 per cent, ending the week at 5,504.6 points. The broader indexes EGX 70 and EGX 100 were also in the black, rising by 0.61 and 1.01 per cent to 652.97 and 1,010.48 points respectively. Orascom Construction Industries (OCI) jumped by 4.05 per cent to LE283.3 per share. Orascom Telecom, the largest Arab mobile operator by subscribers, was flat at LE4.23 per share. Egypt's heavyweight Commercial International Bank (CIB) slipped 0.13 per cent to LE30.22 per share. EFG-Hermes, the country's biggest investment bank by market value, added 0.1 per cent to LE20.58 per share. Meanwhile, real estate firm Egyptian Resorts posted first-quarter net profit of LE3.8 million ($639,500) on higher revenues, according to Reuters. The company, which makes most of its money selling land to developers, reported a net loss of LE1.9 million in the same period a year earlier. Swiss-based Orascom said last year it would jointly develop 2.5 million sq m of Egyptian Resorts property on the Red Sea and had bought a 4.5 per cent stake in the group. Egyptian Resorts said it had paid $7.6 million, or 27 per cent of the land's contract value, and paid a further $5.3 million in rent and other costs. The legality of the Sahl Hasheesh project is being contested after a lawsuit was filed saying the government broke the law in selling the land to the firm.
