Foreign buying pushed Egyptian indexes up on Thursday as the country's main index EGX 30 added 80.65 points, traders said. Orascom Telecom, the largest Arab mobile operator by subscribers, rose by 2.02 per cent to LE6.07 ($1.1) per share. Orascom Construction Industries, Egypt's largest builder by market value, added 1.48 per cent, closing at LE251.62 per share. The North African country's main index EGX 30 gained 1.18 per cent, ending the week's trading at 6,917.13 points. The EGX 70 added 0.23 per cent to 661.29 points. Meanwhile, Raya Technology and Communication made a net profit of LE11.9 million ($2.1 million) in the first quarter of 2010, more than triple the year-ago quarter, the bourse said. The firm, which sells mobile handsets, runs call centres and provides outsourced IT services, made LE3.6 million in the first quarter of 2009. Egyptian appliance maker Olympic Group reported first-quarter net profit growth of 74 per cent on higher domestic sales, particularly in its refrigerator segment. Net profit for the quarter was LE53.1 million ($9.5 million) while revenue was LE649 million. "Year on year, growth in consolidated revenue came mainly on the back of a 16 percent increase in local sales to LE489 million," the statement said. "In the local market, refrigerators sales grew from 78,000 units in first quarter of 2009 to 88,000 units in the first quarter of 2010," the statement added. "In the export markets, it grew from 5,000 units to 14,000 units. As a contribution of total sales growth, growth in refrigerators contributed to almost 28 per cent," it added. "Gross profit margin, excluding non core business, grew to 27.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2010, up from 24 per cent in the first quarter of 2009. Such an improvement came as a result of lower raw material prices and higher production levels," it said. The statement added that Olympic's export sales grew seven per cent year on year to LE36.2 million. Commercial International Bank (CIB), Egypt's biggest private bank by assets, said net income for the first quarter of 2010 rose 12 per cent. Its board of directors approved a dividend for the quarter of one share for every one held, the bank said in an e-mailed statement. Net profit for the quarter was 528.8 million Egyptian pounds ($94.37 million), up from a restated 472.0 million pounds in the first quarter of 2009. World stocks have risen close to six per cent this week following the weekend's 750 billion euro agreement by the European Union and International Monetary Fund to stave off a sovereign debt crisis. They were up around half a per cent with emerging markets putting in a 1.1 per cent gain. The rescue plan has not solved Europe's debt problems but it has put a floor under investors' worst fears of a new financial meltdown and allowed for some pick-up in risk appetite, with credit spreads tightening. Investors have also been able to focus more on fundamentals such as the state of the economy and corporate earnings rather than reacting to fears over Greece and other EU peripheral economies. "Economics come back to the forefront as a calmer market sentiment has been restored," Brown Brothers Harriman said in a note. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 was up half a per cent for an 8.9 per cent rise this week, essentially regaining last week's losses. Traders were focusing on a recent spate of soothing company earnings, some of which were initially all but ignored in the fears over a spreading sovereign debt crisis. "The results that we have been seeing from companies have been very positive and are providing a driving force to equity markets," said Henk Potts, equity strategist at Barclays Wealth. "They (results) exceeded market expectations over the course of the past three months and analysts have been predicting a far more confident outlook for the rest of this year."
