elcoming Remarks
- I think it’s safe to say that 2022 had been a tough year – International inflation, terrifying rises in energy prices; soaring rates in both equity and income markets
- As a frequent visitor and long-term fan and friend to Egypt, I know that 2022 has been a year of extremes for this country
From coping with the fallout of the Ukraine crisis through negotiations on new IMF facility and the fall of the EGP to the hosting of the successful COP conference, Egyptian political and financial leaders certainly being busy
- The early months of the year were horrible when the energy and food security nightmare created by the Russian invasion of Ukraine hit countries hard
- The final straw was the global dollar slid on the back of sudden risk-on sentiments
- Egypt quickly faces severe balance of payments currency and macroeconomic sustainability crisis
- But as I have been known to tell you that Egypt is resilient and resourceful
- Internationally, we have been impressed by the courage of your policy makers and people; you took hard choices which of course caused real pain, I wish we have the same courage
- – The Egyptian pound is worth 40% less than it was the year ago but since the float in October, it has been more or less stable
- Foreign capital is returning and the EGX is up 1.33% in dollar terms year to date and up nearly 45% in Egyptian pound terms since July
Our friends in Qatar and Saudi and Abu Dhabi are all depositing substantial chunks of cash in the CBE and committing to ambitious investment programs; running to over 20 billion USD as of now.
- Their financial contributions are far larger than those of the IMF and shows how important they are to the continued stability and future prosperity on Egypt
But these are not handouts or gifts, there are investments; they are designed to grow and prosper and deliver returns to their investors
- Gulf investors have an unfair, sadly sometimes corrupt reputation for making rush decisions, but their investments in Egypt are not such rushed decisions
- Yes, the stability of Egypt is essential to the stability of the region
- Egypt presents the largest investment opportunity in the middle east and the Mediterranean
- With regional capital flows, we expect to see global capital to flow as well
- International capital flows are now being dominated by new players in the Middle East and ASIA
- They are the risk takers and they are countries and companies who would benefit from future growth
- We hope that your great country has reached an inflectionpoint in 2022
- We can begin a sustainable journey towards a brighter future
- What happens here today and tomorrow matters not just to you but to us
- Today we’re talking about the opportunity which Egypt presents global capital in 2023 and beyond
- We intend to build on the discussions by digging deep into the prospects and into a greater and more sustainable capital
- We want to understand that Egypt can sustain the structural challenges of macro-economy, food, energy security, in finance and in the transition to low and zero carbon economy
- I would like to express my heartfelt to the ministry of finance, ahmed kashouk all their teams for their excellent efforts to help us make that conference together
- I thank our sponsors, Standard Chartered, Mashriq and CitiBank
- I thank the excellent Euromoney team who work effortlessly on this project
- I also want to thank our Egypt and media partners and PR firm TRACCS
- Let me welcome an old friend of Egypt, Richard Banks and his excellency, Dr. Mohamed Maeit
