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follow up up and running, sort of about a week later than originally planned, the nomad website made its debut appearance with its sports pages, the first of several sections (also including news, culture, and so on) that will eventually comprise the massive minhina.com internet portal. the sports section took full advantage of a rather large international sports competition in australia. with egypt’s performance at the sydney olympics as the focus of the front page, minhina provided news and updates about how the national team was doing – but only to english-language readers. sources within the organization said that the delay was due to problems with the arabic-script technology aspects of the site, though management insisted that the arabic version would be up soon. along with the olympics, the site includes pages on sports in egypt, particularly football, handball and squash – as well as international soccer complete with league tables. each page has a mixture of news articles as well as features on the topic. articles appear for the most part to be original, with wire services providing international photos and some pieces about international sports. for the egyptian side of the olympics, the site has two correspondents in sydney. meanwhile, three weeks after bayt.com’s most recent scheduled launch date, the website looked pretty much the same as it did three months earlier. "launching soon, the next evolution in online communities for the middle east," the banner at the top of the homepage said. the yellow "baytwire" strip near the bottom of the screen continued to spit out single-sentence news briefs which are general enough to be relevant any time in the last six months. ("syria calls on barak to make peace now," said one newsbite.) a month and a half ago, bayt’s vice president of strategic alliances, tarek demerji, was promising a partial launch on september 1. the idea was to continue adding new elements so that the website would become fully operational by about mid-october. bayt, in the preparation stages since last year, had previously announced plans to launch in april 2000 and then july. in addition, several wedding-themed websites have recently come on line. in addition to marriageegypt.com (previewed in the business monthly's executive life section last month), the egyptian wedding scene is also being represented by weddingegypt.com and afrahna.com. progress slow on privatization the latest quarterly "privatization in egypt" report from the usaid-backed privatization coordination support unit (pcsu) echoes recent criticisms by economists and stock market analysts about the slow pace of sales of state-owned companies so far this year. "during the second quarter of 2000 no privatizations were completed," the report states bluntly. the pcsu’s previous, first-quarter report characterized egypt’s privatization efforts as "tepid" but did not go so far as to question egypt’s resolve to sell state-owned assets. the latest report, however, hints the government is less than serious about relinquishing any degree of control over market forces. "until a commitment is made to implement alternative, market-based methods of privatization, egypt will continue to have limited success in its efforts to unburden itself from its costly support of publicly owned companies," it says. with many state-owned companies and governmental entities being considered for privatization, if not in the process already, "the absence of privatization success in the last quarter is a particularly worrisome statistic." the government’s apparent stalling "is further exacerbated by the fact that no leases or management projects were completed during this period." the sluggishness of the local stock market, the possibility of competition from private sector stock issues and the shortage of cash in the economy have all been cited as reasons for the government’s hesitation to put companies on the block. meanwhile, potential investors – both local and foreign – have shown reluctance to bid for companies based on the government’s pre-set valuations. but even if these excuses were all valid, the pcsu argues, "they would not sufficiently explain the lack of second-quarter sales, which followed upon only five closed privatizations in the first quarter of 2000." the report notes that some of the companies slated for sale under the privatization program will need "pre-privatization actions," such as labor, operational or financial restructuring, if they are ever to attract buyers. the pcsu, however, did note a few positive developments, including government approval for sales of joint-venture banks, a promise to sell the four state-owned insurance companies by the end of the year, and the commitment to offer a 20-percent stake in egypt telecom. but as one attendee said of the government ministers who spoke at the opening of cairo’s recent euromoney conference, "they said exactly the same things that they had said last year, like ‘we are going to privatize 150 companies in the coming year.’ they never deliver." still, the government now looks set to follow through with the egypt telecom offering. the months ahead, therefore, could provide an important litmus test for egypt’s resolve to sell off its state assets. government pays up as pound
goes down the dollar has steadily gained ground against the egyptian guinea in the last month, hitting a black-market rate of £e 3.7 – the all-time high since the pound was pegged to the greenback in 1991 – as business monthly went to press. the pound’s weakness comes despite an increase in the country’s foreign exchange reserves in may, the first in two years. at the end of 1998, reserves stood at $20 billion, but fell steadily until the end of may, when there was a slight rise to $15.068 billion. presently, the level of reserves is sufficient to cover 10 months’ worth of imports. the central bank of egypt injected some $248 million into the market in the first half of august to meet demand from banks for dollars – and to check the us currency’s rapidly increasing value against the pound, according to a central bank official. "we’ve met all the dollar demand from banks," said mohammed al barbari, a senior advisor to the central bank governor. "i think this is reflected in the stabilization of the [unofficial] price of the dollar." asked if the central bank was planning further injections of us currency into the local economy, al barbari said that "any further dollar injections into the money market would depend on fresh demand." however, the september 4 edition of the business daily al alam al youm quoted exchange bureau heads as saying they did not think the central bank’s move was sufficient to meet the growing hunger for dollars. "the amount injected by the central bank is small compared to the gap in the market," the paper noted. meanwhile, the government – proceeding with its "liquidity injection" plan announced in april – has paid back £e 8.4 billion of debts owed to domestic companies, according to an august 13 statement from minister of economy youssef boutros ghali. telecom egypt ipo approved the cabinet on september 18 approved the sale of 20 percent of the state-owned telecom egypt via an initial public offering (ipo) which will take place at the end of october, according to information minister safwat sherif. after a cabinet meeting chaired by prime minister atef ebeid, sherif told reporters that the ipo – half of which will be offered to local and institutional investors and half to international investors – will raise between $1.2 billion and $1.4 billion. the minister did not disclose what the per-share issue price would be or when the government would announce it. the government reckons telecom egypt to be worth between $6 billion and $7 billion in total. a further 5 percent stake in the company will be offered to its employees, sherif said. abn-amro rothschild – which will administer the bid along with the commercial international bank – has said that telecom egypt’s offering will include a global depository receipt and a private placement. telecom egypt chairman akil hamid beshir, who took over in june, is in charge of preparing the share offer. telecom egypt – whose ipo follows months of anxious anticipation in the market – has a monopoly on fixed telephone lines and has been granted a cellular license that will become operational in december 2002. |
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