Good morning, all. We kick off the week with news of Fitch affirming our A+ rating despite the economic fallouts of the US-Iran war. GDP growth, meanwhile, is expected to slow to 0.6% this year, down from the pre-war estimate of 4.8%.
The EnterpriseAM Egypt Forum is back — and this year, we’re giving the full day to the one question on every business leader’s mind: What does AI actually mean for your company, your people, and your own job?
Leaders in New York, London, Abu Dhabi, and Singapore are asking the same things, and nobody has built a playbook that works yet. We’re all figuring it out in real time — and for Egypt, the stakes are unusually high.
Egypt could leapfrog a generation on the back of this technology — or watch AI hollow out the industries and jobs we can’t afford to lose. The leaders who get literate early will be the ones who get to decide which road we take.
Every session on stage answers one question: “So, what do I actually do about it?”
Join us on 5 October in Cairo. Seats are limited and attendance is by invitation only.
Request your invitation here.
Hassan Allam eyes the exchanges
Our friends at Hassan Allam Holding are considering taking some of their real estate and infrastructure subsidiaries public on Gulf exchanges, the EGX, or on both, Chairman and CEO Hassan Allam was quoted as saying on the sidelines of BMG Economic Forum at the London Stock Exchange. The parent conglomerate will stay private.
Why it matters: Listing foreign-facing subsidiaries in Gulf markets would give Hassan Allam access to funding while keeping the parent conglomerate private. The group is executing a USD 10.5 bn project backlog, split evenly between Egypt and markets including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Libya, and Oman. Saudi is the group’s largest foreign market with over USD 2 bn in active contracts, followed by the UAE, Libya, and Oman. Hassan Allam’s real estate development arm, Grova, launched the SAR 3.3 bn Noor Khuzam project in Riyadh alongside local partners.
REFRESHER- We have been tracking Hassan Allam’s capital market moves since last year, when the group filed to list a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) on the EGX. The SPAC was rebranded to Grova Venture Capital and had its issued capital raised to EGP 100 mn to fund future acquisitions. When market chatter suggested the blank-check vehicle was a backdoor listing for Hassan Allam Construction, the company denied those rumors.
Visa-in-a-package
The Tourism Ministry has launched a bundled Tourist Visa Package, allowing travelers from seven countries to obtain an electronic tourist visa as part of a single travel booking. Jordan, Egypt, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Mexico, and Pakistan are the first eligible nationalities, with more to follow.
How it works: The package must include a confirmed round-trip flight and accommodation at a Tourism Ministry-licensed hotel rated at least four stars. The visa is issued electronically within 48 hours of purchase, with no embassy visit required. Two travel agencies, Reserval and Almosafer, are currently accredited to offer the service.
The fine print: The visa is single-entry, valid for three months, with stays of between two and 88 days. Packages start at SAR 4k per adult for the first two days, plus SAR 1k for each additional day. The visa cannot be cancelled independently; cancelling the travel package automatically revokes it. Visa holders may travel freely within the Kingdom after arrival, including to Makkah and Madinah, though Umrah services are not included.
A high-level Iraqi visit soon?
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Faleh Al Zaidi plans to visit Riyadh “in the coming period” to strengthen economic ties with Saudi Arabia, as part of a broader Arab tour following an anticipated trip to Washington, he told Al Arabiya without specifying a date.
The country has no plans to leave Opec, but will continue to push for what it considers a fair production quota that reflects its capacity, Al Zaidi said. Opec+ chose to increase its production quotas by 188k bbl / d in July, even if many of those barrels cannot physically reach the market.
Data point
18.7% — that’s how far the Industrial Production Index (IPI) fell y-o-y in May, dragged down by a 28.6% y-o-y drop in mining and quarrying alongside a 6.2% decline in manufacturing, according to data (pdf) from the General Authority for Statistics. On a monthly basis, the index rose 3.2% from April.
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The big story abroad
Regional tensions are escalating. Iran said it closed the Strait of Hormuz after firing a warning shot yesterday at a Cyprus-flagged container ship it said took an “unapproved route.” Iran’s navy said the waterway will remain closed “until further notice” or “until the end of US interference in the region,” and vowed to respond to any retaliation with a “forceful response.”
The US military responded by launching its third round of strikes against Iran in a week, US Central Command (Centcom) said. The fresh round of strikes — targeting Iranian air and surface-surveillance radars, missile and drone storage facilities — aims to weaken Iran’s ability to attack commercial vessels, Centcom said.
Meanwhile, in the AI world: Apple has filed a lawsuit accusing OpenAI and two of its former employees of stealing hardware designs, claiming that the ChatGPT developer’s top brass enabled this behavior. The lawsuit names two former Apple employees who have joined OpenAI, alleging improper transfer of sensitive information. The iPhone maker claims that over 400 of its former employees have joined the AI company.
Speaking of AI, not everyone can ride the wave: Analysis by the Financial Times has found that while 28 companies that pivoted to AI saw their combined market cap initially surge by USD 8.7 bn, more than half of those valuation gains have since evaporated. Findings suggest a trend of struggling companies using buzzy AI name changes to target retail investors and secure short-term market gains — the SEC calls this “AI washing.”
A memory drought may be coming: South Korean semiconductor giant SK Hynix’s CEO Kwak Noh-jung has sounded the alarm over an incoming memory supply shortage in 2027, set to be the worst ever in history. The company is forecasting that customer demand will continue to outstrip supply capacity even after 2030. Kwak’s comments echo similar sentiments from Nvidia and UBS.
An imminent change of ownership at Vodafone is making waves. French b’naire Xavier Niel is set to increase his ownership of Vodafone Group to become its largest shareholder after UAE telecom group e& agreed to sell him its entire 16.2% stake for about USD 6 bn. Some analysts say that Niel will exert influence over Vodafone’s strategy, catalyzing the firm’s cost-cutting and freecash flow growth.
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