{"id":18671,"date":"2024-03-07T18:13:07","date_gmt":"2024-03-07T16:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/?p=18671"},"modified":"2026-10-09T02:36:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T00:36:29","slug":"newsletter-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/newsletter-23\/","title":{"rendered":"Administrative Control Arrests 18 Civil Aviation Officials for Currency Trading… and a Bill to Cut Pretrial Detention Periods"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Administrative Control Authority announced the arrest of what it called a criminal gang made up of 18 officials in the civil aviation sector, accused of trading in foreign currency, embezzlement and profiteering.<\/p>\n

Investigations were carried out in coordination with the Ministry of Civil Aviation. According to the announcement, 18 of the officials responsible for the company’s treasury were found to have agreed to embezzle foreign currency paid by travellers, worth about USD 1 million. According to the Administrative Control Authority, the currency was offered for sale on the parallel market and deposited in the treasury in local currency after making financial gains.<\/p>\n

The Public Prosecution ordered their pretrial detention, and investigations into the incident are ongoing.<\/p>\n

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A Bill to Cut Pretrial Detention Periods<\/h3>\n

The subcommittee formed to draft and review the government’s bill amending some provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure has finished preparing the draft of the new Code of Criminal Procedure. The committee agreed to reduce pretrial detention periods to 4 months instead of 6 in misdemeanours, 12 months instead of 18 months in felonies, and 18 months instead of two years if the penalty prescribed for the crime is life imprisonment or death, and to set a maximum of two years for pretrial detention ordered by the second-instance felony court or the Court of Cassation in crimes punishable by death or life imprisonment, instead of no time limit.<\/p>\n

After the meeting, Speaker of the House of Representatives Counsellor Dr Hanafy Gebaly thanked the committee members for their efforts throughout the committee’s work, which lasted more than 14 months, praising the precise provisions and wording the committee approved for the bill’s articles in accordance with the provisions of the constitution and international human rights standards.<\/p>\n

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The IMF Agrees to Lend Cairo USD 8 Billion<\/h3>\n

Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly announced at a joint press conference with the IMF mission that the Fund had agreed to grant the Egyptian government a USD 8 billion loan, after intensive negotiations to raise the value of the latest loan from three billion to eight. He stressed that the Egyptian authorities had shown their commitment to working on the economic reform programme, adding that they are working to reduce inflation, create jobs and increase social protection packages.<\/p>\n

He added: With the signing, we will be able to apply to the environmental sustainability fund, responsible for climate change, for another loan worth one billion or 1.2 billion dollars, so that the total for the integrated programme with the Fund could be about nine billion dollars.<\/p>\n

The prime minister went on: As soon as we sign with the Fund, development partners, led by the World Bank, the European Union and a number of other partners, will provide concessional loans to Egypt so that we can achieve monetary stability and continue the structural reform programme.<\/p>\n

The Central Bank of Egypt announced yesterday, Wednesday, a 6% rise in deposit and lending interest rates in one go. After the increase, the central bank’s interest rates rose to 27.25% for deposits and 28.25% for lending. It also decided to allow the pound’s exchange rate to be determined by market mechanisms.<\/p>\n

The bank stressed in a statement its commitment to maintaining price stability in the medium term and moving towards a flexible inflation-targeting framework.<\/p>\n

To read more about the decisions, please see our report titled: The Pound Flotation: Repercussions of the Central Bank of Egypt’s Decisions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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New Government Decisions… Most Notably Investment in Sinai<\/h3>\n

Madbouly announced a number of decisions during the joint press conference with the IMF mission, as follows: the immediate release of goods at the various ports, with customs release of goods including food, fodder, medicines and production inputs; providing goods in markets and controlling prices; approval to import one million tonnes of sugar this year, and to import 300,000 tonnes of sugar urgently as a first phase; providing sugar in large quantities in markets in the coming period; increasing sugar sales outlets; and facilitating the transport of sugar in the various governorates.<\/p>\n

The prime minister added that the decisions include: continuing the measures of the structural reform programme; continuing policies supporting increased private sector participation in the Egyptian economy; monitoring markets and the impact of the central bank’s decisions on them; continuing policies to rationalise government spending; working to reduce inflation rates; reaching an agreement with the IMF on the economic policies of the programme Egypt signed with the Fund; returning the private sector to being the largest contributor to total investment; setting a ceiling on public investment by all state bodies; pardoning some prisoners on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr; launching the seventh phase of the immediate payment initiative to pay export support arrears owed to exporting companies; increasing compensation for occupants of units in the Historic Cairo revival project; establishing a chamber of advertising industries in the Federation of Industries; establishing a private technological university for applied sciences; approving the settlement of investment disputes in 30 cases; and issuing the executive regulations of the National Alliance law.<\/p>\n

Also: approving 37 projects in 14 governorates, including drilling exploratory wells; approving the reallocation of plots of land for development activities in Sinai; reconstituting the disaster management committee to provide support in ending crises; approving five bills licensing the petroleum minister to search for gas; setting the working hours of employees in the state’s administrative apparatus during Ramadan from 9 am to 2 pm; completing the infrastructure project at the new headquarters of Sohag University; and starting a new agricultural reclamation activity in the Sinai Peninsula.<\/p>\n

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Fitch: The Exchange Rate Will Remain Volatile in the Short Term in Egypt<\/h3>\n

Fitch Ratings said in a statement that after the central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee decided to raise interest rates by 600 basis points yesterday, Wednesday, it expects the Central Bank of Egypt to keep the overnight deposit rate at 27.25% and the overnight lending rate at 28.25% for the rest of the year, a positive step indicating the Central Bank of Egypt’s seriousness in reducing inflation, as Fitch described it.<\/p>\n

The agency continued: Given that inflation probably slowed to below 25% year on year last February, the interest rate hike was enough to restore positive real interest rates. Even with the currency liberalisation, inflation will remain at about 30.0% until the end of 2024, which will keep real interest rates close to positive. This will attract portfolio investors back to the Egyptian debt market. However, the agency expects the exchange rate to remain volatile in the short term until the market adjusts to the new currency devaluation.<\/p>\n

The agency stressed in its statement that the exchange rate is currently weaker than the range it had previously expected, between EGP 40\/USD and EGP 45\/USD, but it is still close to the EGP 50\/USD level.<\/p>\n

The agency believes the political risks arising from the announced measures will remain under control, because the authorities’ crackdown on currency traders and speculators and positive news (such as the recent Emirati investment deal) have strengthened the Egyptian pound on the parallel market from about EGP 75\/USD last January to about EGP 50\/USD. It also kept its forecast that economic growth will slow from 3.8% in fiscal year 2022\/2023 to 3.2% in fiscal year 2023\/2024 before rising by 4.2% in fiscal year 2024\/2025, as tighter-than-expected monetary policy will increase borrowing costs for companies and households, negatively affecting consumption and domestic investment.<\/p>\n

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A New Decision to Use the Land of the Former National Democratic Party<\/h3>\n

The Official Gazette published the Cabinet decision approving the granting of approval to a number of companies, including the establishment of a 75-storey hotel, commercial and administrative tower on an area of about 3.95 feddans, on plot No. 1113 on Corniche El-Nil Street, next to the Egyptian Museum, with implementation to be completed no later than the second half of 2028.<\/p>\n

The Cabinet also approved granting Nilus Residential Services S.A.E. approval to build a residential tower of 446 luxury housing units spread over 50 storeys, to be completed in the second half of 2028; and Ice Links LLC approval to establish and operate a factory for manufacturing, filling, packaging and preparing food products, and to establish and operate refrigerators for storing agricultural crops, industrial products and food products, on an area of 39,224.97 square metres on plot No. (3, 4\/5\/2) in the Fifth Industrial Zone (A), New Borg El-Arab City, Alexandria Governorate, with the project to be completed by the end of this year.<\/p>\n

Under the decision, the three companies must implement their projects within the set timetable, comply with all conditions and controls related to practising their activities in accordance with laws and regulations, and implement the undertakings they submitted to the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones. Ice Links must also pay the New Urban Communities Authority the separate financial premium for the activity of establishing and operating the refrigerator for storing food products.<\/p>\n

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Senate Decides to Stop Cash Benefits to a Beneficiary’s Family on His Death<\/h3>\n

The Senate decided to stop the cash benefits the government provides to the family of a registered beneficiary on his death, in what it called reorganising entitlement to cash support on the death of the beneficiary, whether as a member of a family or as an individual entitlement.<\/p>\n

The Senate gave final approval to the draft unified social security law, Article 18 of which provides that: “In the event of the death of one of the individual beneficiaries, or one of the members of a beneficiary family, any concerned party shall notify the competent unit to which the case’s place of residence belongs, and this unit shall repeat the field study regarding the family entitlement to consider continuing payment, transferring it to another of the categories subject to the provisions of this law, or stopping payment”. In the case of individual entitlement, the transfer of support is stopped and may not be transferred in the name of any other person, and any amounts due to him revert to the competent fund.<\/p>\n

The first chapter of the attached bill sets out the main objective of the bill, namely the right of every citizen below the national poverty line who does not enjoy social insurance to apply for cash support, whether permanently or temporarily, as the case may be, whenever one of the prescribed cases of entitlement applies to them, along with provisions on “determining the degree of poverty, the rules for calculating age in applying the law, and judicial enforcement powers”. The second chapter regulates conditional cash support “Takaful” and unconditional support “Karama” through two sections, setting out the eligible categories and the common provisions, such as the possibility of combining the two types of support, entitlement priorities, the value of the support and others, as well as the other benefits and services for recipients of conditional and unconditional cash support.<\/p>\n

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President Sisi Approves a Loan from the Arab Monetary Fund<\/h3>\n

The Official Gazette today published Decree No. 473 of 2023 of the President of the Arab Republic of Egypt approving the agreement on “the seventh structural adjustment facility loan between the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt and the Arab Monetary Fund worth 153,475,000 Arab accounting dinars, equivalent to about USD 614.3 million”.<\/p>\n

The text of Decree No. 473 of 2023 of the President of the Arab Republic of Egypt approving the agreement on “the seventh structural adjustment facility loan between the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt and the Arab Monetary Fund worth 153,475,000 Arab accounting dinars, equivalent to about USD 614.3 million” reads: The President of the Republic, having reviewed the text of Article 151 of the Constitution<\/p>\n

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President Sisi Approves a Korean Loan<\/h3>\n

The Official Gazette today published Decree No. 339 of 2023 of the President of the Arab Republic of Egypt approving the loan arrangement agreement between the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt and the Government of the Republic of Korea for a USD 460 million loan through the Export-Import Bank of Korea for the project “manufacturing and supplying 40 train units (320 cars) for the second and third lines of the Greater Cairo Metro”, signed on 12 June 2023.<\/p>\n

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Customs Dollar Rate Reaches EGP 49.5<\/h3>\n

The website of the Egyptian Customs Authority showed the customs dollar rate adjusted to EGP 49.57 from EGP 30.96. The customs dollar is the rate used for customs transactions.<\/p>\n

Wednesday also saw the announcement of an agreement to increase Egypt’s IMF loan to USD 8 billion from USD 3 billion, with the possibility of obtaining another loan of around USD 1 billion for environmental sustainability, bringing the total Egypt may receive to USD 9 billion. The Central Bank of Egypt raised interest rates by 6% at a surprise meeting on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Egypt secures an expanded USD 8 billion IMF loan as the central bank floats the pound, while officials are arrested for currency trading and detention limits are cut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":8232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[412],"tags":[18314,20087,20083,20080,20086,20085,20082,20084,20081,20088],"kateb":[710],"class_list":["post-18671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics-en","tag-administrative-control-authority","tag-arab-monetary-fund-loan","tag-central-bank-interest-rate-hike","tag-civil-aviation-currency-trading","tag-customs-dollar-rate","tag-fitch-egypt-outlook","tag-imf-8-billion-loan-egypt","tag-pound-flotation-march-2024","tag-pretrial-detention-bill","tag-unified-social-security-law","kateb-zawia3-com"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/\u0632\u0627\u0648\u064a\u0629-\u062b\u0627\u0644\u062b\u0629-\u0627\u0644\u0645\u0648\u0642\u0639-\u0627\u0644\u0625\u0644\u0643\u062a\u0631\u0648\u0646\u064a.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18671"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18672,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18671\/revisions\/18672"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18671"},{"taxonomy":"kateb","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kateb?post=18671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}