Regional News

  CAIRO/ Reuters Egypt’s public prosecutor has ordered the arrest of 13 people for 15 days pending an investigation into their role in a wheat procurement corruption scandal, judicial sources said. Egypt, the world’s largest wheat importer, has been mired in controversy over its wheat supplies, with industry officials claiming that over 2 million tonnes of the 5 million tonnes ...

  CAIRO / Reuters Egypt’s preliminary deal for a $12 billion IMF loan programme can go to the board for approval only if the government secures $5-6 billion in bilateral financing for the first year, Chris Jarvis, the head of the IMF mission in Cairo, said. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said earlier it had agreed in principle to grant ...

  Reuters Bahrain-based Investcorp is aiming to make one to two new investments in the next year in each of its regions of the United States, Europe and the Gulf, Co-Chief Executive Rishi Kapoor said on Thursday. The investments will help contribute to Investcorp’s goal of more than doubling its assets under management in the next five to seven years ...

  Bloomberg Australia rejected bids for electricity network Ausgrid from Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing and State Grid Corp. of China, amid growing opposition to selling infrastructure assets to overseas investors. Treasurer Scott Morrison said it would be contrary to national security to allow the offers to proceed in their current form and said the bidders, which he didn’t name, ...

  Bloomberg Egypt reached an initial agreement with the International Monetary Fund over a $12 billion package designed to restore the confidence of foreign investors and ease a crippling dollar shortage hampering economic growth. The three-year agreement aims to “improve the functioning of the foreign exchange markets, bring down the budget deficit and government debt, and to raise growth and ...

  AP Three Egyptian dailies said that Cairo was proposing to IMF delegates an 18-month reform program in return for a $12 billion loan over three years to shore up its economy, but that differences remained between the two sides on how to proceed. The reports by the privately-owned Al-Shorouk, Al-Masry Al-Youm and Al-Watan said the two sides were at ...

  AGENCIES Revenue from Egypt’s Suez Canal reached $3.183 billion in the period between January 1 and August 6, up 4 percent from $3.059 billion in the same period last year, the Suez Canal Authority Chairman said. Mohab Mameesh, who was speaking at a one-year anniversary celebration of the opening of an expansion to the canal, said the canal’s revenues ...

  Bloomberg When commodity prices crashed in late 2014, oil executives could look at their mining counterparts with a sense of superiority. Back then, the world’s biggest oil companies enjoyed relatively strong balance sheets, with little borrowing relative to the value of their assets. Miners entered the slump in a very different state and some of the world’s largest — ...

  Bloomberg A revolution in south Australia is wresting power from utility-owned grids and putting it inside batteries installed inside the homes of electricity consumers. Billed as the world’s biggest “virtual power plant,” AGL Energy Ltd. is installing 1,000 batteries in and around Adelaide at a cost of about A$20 million ($15 million), according to a statement on Friday. The ...

Bloomberg Countries in the Middle East and North Africa led by Egypt, Kuwait and Morocco are boosting liquefied natural gas import capacity, taking advantage of low prices to meet rising energy demand. The region plans to add permanent terminals and temporary, off-shore units that will increase annual capacity by 58.2 billion cubic meters in 2021, energy lender Arab Petroleum Investment ...