By Rebecca Collard IBM is bringing nanotechnology to Egypt. By phto Hi-end developments blamed for Duweiqa rockslide. By Associated Press Google fires another salvo in the browser battles. By Mohsen Allam The CBE is trying to slow spending and consequently slow inflation. By Mohsen Allam The Ministry of Trade and Industry puts the steel industry on a short leash. By Associated Press No long-term sweetheart deals for MOPCO By Courtesy TMG Scandals and sinking share prices have not distracted the Talaat Moustafa Group, developers of Madinaty, from its expansion plans.

IBM Increases Investments in Egypt

Egypt will be home to North Africa’s first nanotechnology center, the result of one of two agreements the government signed with IBM September 19. The three-year project, starting in January 2009, will see a joint investment of around $30 million (LE 160 million).

“Our scientists and Egyptian scientists will be collaborating on future uses of nanotechnology. Whether that’s in alternative energy sources or desalinization of water, the multiple different fields that this technology can be applied in could solve some of the most severe problems we all face as societies all around the world,” said Samuel Palmisano, IBM chairman, president and CEO, at a press conference shortly after signing the agreement.

Nanotechnology is based on manipulation of matter on an atomic and molecular level and developing technologies under 100 nanometers in scale. A nanometer is about 100,000 times thinner than a human hair. The center here will focus on research and development and will coordinate with IBM labs in Europe and the US.

The company has been operating in Egypt since 1954, but this is the first visit of an IBM CEO to the country. Palmisano didn’t comment on how much IBM has invested in Egypt, but said they currently have 900 employees here.

Under the second agreement, Services Science, Management and Engineering (SSME), a strategy that integrates hard sciences and engineering with soft sciences and business skills, will be introduced to the Egyptian curriculum. “We need excellent skills; we hire highly qualified skilled engineers,” said Palmisano. “Fortunately we found some wonderful people here, like Dr. [Tarek] Kamel [Minister of Communications and Information Technology] and his team that are willing to work with us to go adjust the educational curriculum and train these people for the future jobs.”

IBM will also launch a Service Delivery Center, which the company says is the first center of its kind in the region. It will provide business, software, maintenance and other assistance to clients in the region as well as France, Germany, Spain, Sweden and the US.

The center will initially employ 100 people, but IBM says it expects that number to grow to 1,000 in the next few years. The Ministry of Trade and Investment said in a press release that they hope the new Service Delivery Center will help Egypt in its quest to increase IT exports.

“The partnership between Egypt and IBM has been very successful within the last few years and we look forward to increasing this partnership in the establishment of the nanotechnology center, in the establishment of the global delivery center with 1000 engineers [and] hopefully within a couple of years [to] help us train our [people] in university,” said Kamel.IT & COMMUNICATIONSSecond Fixed Line Auction Postponed

For at least another year, Telecom Egypt’s (TE) monopoly on fixed-line services in the country will remain intact. The National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) said in a statement that the auction for a second fixed-line — already postponed several times this year — will be put on hold again, until sometime in 2009.

According to a statement by the NTRA’s president, Amr Badawi, the decision to postpone the September 18 auction was made after consultations with the 12 telecom companies and consortia involved in the bidding. The move is blamed on rising inflation and troubled world markets. Bidders were made to purchase a mandatory book on ‘rules of purchase’ for $10,000 (LE 54,500) as well as provide an auction guarantee of LE 10 million.

A major selling point for bidders is the ability to offer broadband internet over the long-distance, wireless WiMAX service.

TE has been the sole fixed-line operator in Egypt since 1881 and today owns roughly 22,000 kilometers of fiber-optic lines in the country. Ending TE’s monopoly is a requirement of the World Trade Organization’s Basic Telecom Agreement, of which Egypt is a signatory.

Egypt’s biggest telecommunications company, Orascom Telecom, and Japanese giant Mitsubishi Corporation have signed an agreement to pair up on a range of corporate social responsibility projects, starting with the launch of a rehabilitation center for disadvantaged children in Egypt. The center, to be built in Fayed between Ismailia and Suez, will serve poor and handicapped youth. “This partnership initiative is our first step towards our commitment to improve the living conditions of children at risk and towards the social development of Egypt at large,” said Naguib Sawiris, Orascom Telecom chairman and CEO, in a statement.

The planned beachfront center will be managed by Caritas-Egypt, a Christian NGO with over 30 years of experience in similar aid projects, including care centers for street children. Workshops will be held to train the kids on “self-control, participation in decision making, assuming responsibility and finding solutions for problems they face,” according to the statement. This is just the first of many projects, according to Mitsubishi general manager Masyuki Sato.

Orascom Telecom is presently in line to bid on Lebanon’s two state-owned mobile phone network providers, which are being sold to relieve some of the Lebanese public debt, according to the Financial Times on September 25. The networks are expected to sell for $2.4 billion (LE 13 billion) and $3.4 billion (LE 18.5 billion). Orascom Telecom, the biggest Arab mobile phone operator by subscribers, has also bought back 830,530 of its own global depository receipts (GDRs) in the past two months. It plans to purchase back up to 8.9 million GDRs over the next year, Reuters reported.

Emaar Misr has denied that its $12 billion Uptown Cairo project in Moqattam caused the massive rock fall that killed 100 people in the shantytown of Duweiqa in early September. Sameh Mohtady, CEO of Emaar Misr; said it was is highly unlikely that the company’s development had anything to do with the tons of rock that fell on the village, as the development is 3.5 kilometers from the site.

The theory went that Uptown Cairo’s massive golf courses were to blame, as the irrigation water permeated the rock and caused the collapse, as well as massive building and digging activities in the region. Mohtady added that the golf courses are still under construction and Emaar has not yet started irrigating the site. Mohtady also pointed out that the company obtained all the necessary environmental and construction approvals before starting the project.

Etisalat announced last month that it would partner up with Huawei, a large Chinese telecommunications company based in Shenzhen, to expand on its existing GSM network. The new agreement calls for Huawei to deploy a complete end-to-end network solution so that Etisalat can improve its coverage quality and provide a wider array of services to its 3.5 million users.

Saleh Al-Abduli, CEO of Etisalat Misr, said in a press release, “we chose Huawei as our supplier when we got the third mobile license in 2006. After two years of development, we choose Huawei again for the network expansion. It will enable us to provide the best service quality to our subscribers.”

Etisalat Misr, a subsidiary of Etisalat UAE, is the third and latest mobile carrier to enter the scene in Egypt and has been vying for more consumers since its late emergence by offering exclusive services like its 3.75G network. The other two carriers are Mobinil, a joint venture between Orange and Orascom with 19 million users, and Vodafone Egypt with just over 14 million users.

“We are honored to partner with Etisalat Misr again. With our innovative UMTS, HSDPA and GSM solutions, we are dedicated to help Etisalat Misr enhance its competitiveness in Egypt,” said Peng Zhongyang, president of Huawei North Africa Region, in a statement.

The race to create the best web browser just got hotter with Google Inc.’s release of Google Chrome in September.

The beta version of the browser is available in 43 languages, including Arabic, and is being advertised as a faster, more user-friendly way to experience everything the world wide web has to offer.

“We think of the browser as the window to the web — it’s a tool for users to interact with the websites and applications they care about, and it’s important that we don’t get in the way of that experience,” said Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management at Google Inc., in a press release.

Wael Fakharany, country manager for Google Egypt, says Chrome is easy to use, stable and has new options that support more web-based applications.

“We’ve designed Google Chrome to be as unobtrusive as possible — taking up the minimum amount of space on your screen, and you can search and browse all from the address bar. Its sophisticated technology makes Google Chrome fast and stable,” says Fakharany. “For example, we’ve designed each tab to act as a stand-alone browser. So if you have lots of tabs open at once, and one crashes, they don’t all go down. And its powerful new JavaScript engine, V8, helps speed up your web applications.”

What makes the browser unique is the fact that the source code is accessible to anyone, which means the possibilities for improving or personalizing Chrome, not to mention other web software and technology, are endless, adds Fakharany.

Internet software creator Mozilla released its newest browser in July, Firefox 3, which also offers an Arabic-language version.

Firefox 3 boasts a few similar features to Chrome, like the combined search and address bar at the top of the screen and instant bookmarking, but also has a few new tricks up its sleeve, such as the zoom feature.

Microsoft is making its contribution with Internet Explorer 8 Beta, which allows you to browse in private mode and get timely updates from your favorite web sites using its web slices function.

Inflation hit a new high in August, rising to 23.6%. The spike prompted the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) to raise overnight lending and deposits rates, yet again, to 11.5% and 13.5% respectively.

The half a percentage hike went into effect after the CBE’s Monetary Policy Committee met September 18. The move is designed to entice large corporations and financial institutions to put their money in banks in hopes of curbing spending, thereby slowing inflation.

The CBE released a statement about the committee’s decision saying the inflation increase of 1.5% over July couldn’t solely be blamed on increasing food prices, as most have dropped significantly.

“The monthly pace of acceleration in food prices excluding fruits and vegetables almost halved, falling from an average of 3.88% between January and May [of this year] to 1.68% over the last three months,” it reported. “This comes on the backdrop of the decline in international food prices (particularly wheat), imposing a temporary ban on local rice exports and scrapping import tariffs on some basic staple food products.”

The CBE added that non-food inflation was a continuing concern and said it would “continue to closely monitor all economic developments, especially the factors underlying inflation,” and adjust rates accordingly.

The rates in question were originally 8.75% and 10.75% at the beginning of the year, says James Goold, Ahli United Bank’s CEO and Managing Director (Egypt). The major increase reflects the CBE’s determination to try and tackle inflation head on.

“Inflation has grown dramatically in the same period. Clearly the Central Bank of Egypt is very aware of the threat of inflation,” he says.

If inflation carries on growing in this manner, the rates will have to follow, adds Goold. “Either inflation has to come down or interest rates have to rise further.”

The CBE also took steps to keep closer tabs on banks and mortgage finance companies last month, requiring them to submit detailed reports every quarter. The announcement, reported by Al-Mal, is aimed at improving supervision and risk management in Egypt’s financial sector.

Just weeks after the cement sector anti-trust lawsuit came to its controversial conclusion, the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) has issued a warning to eight steel production companies that have yet to announce prices.

The companies are National Port Said Steel, Medi Trade, Al Masria Steel and Cement Company, Delta Industrial Investments, Egyptian Iron and Steel, Delta Steel and Suez Steel Industries. The latest report issued by the MTI has placed average steel prices for consumers at LE 6,200 per ton versus August prices of LE 7,750 per ton.

To keep cement companies on a short leash, MTI had legislated that steel companies need to announce their dealer and consumer steel prices at the beginning of every month. Industry experts say that steel prices should go down even further in the coming months, as steel billets worldwide have gone down to $820 (LE 4,470) per ton.

Osama Abdel Moneim, trade director of Al-Heba for Steel Trade and Import, estimates that based on the fact that the new contracts will be signed in September 2008, after the new prices come into effect, fair-value steel prices will be close to LE 5,300 per ton.

The Holding Company for Natural Gas (EGas) has denied that MOPCO Petroleum Manufacturing has a contract to obtain natural gas at $1 (LE 5.45) per one million units for the next 20 years.

Mohamed Latif, head of EGas, says that selling natural gas at this price is only done during the first two years of trial operation, when production processes could fluctuate hugely. Following this trial period, specific price equations determining how much a company charges to provide natural gas come into effect.

In the case of MOPCO, the price is set at $8.25 (LE 45) per million unit, higher than US-based supplier Henry Hope.

Latif adds that if MOPCO requires a higher supply or has established new expansions, the $1 per million units will not apply.

The Egyptian Spinning Company has announced that it has completed the first phase of its facilities’ developments, at a cost of LE 100 million, sourced from government investments in the company.

The company has asked Mohsen El-Gillany, head of the Holding Company for Spinning and Weaving, and the Ministry of Trade and Investment for an additional LE 430 million to complete the remaining development plan, which aims to advance spinning, weaving, dyeing and preparation processes, the highest producing departments.

In an interview with daily newspaper Al-Mal, Fouad Abdel Alim, chairman of Egyptian Spinning Company, said that the company currently holds 30% of the spinning and weaving market. He also pointed out that there will be a complete management restructuring process that will be completed by 2011 — also the target time for completion of the current development plan.

According to the report, 90 local and Arab investors have presented proposals for various projects, all of which involve the desert side of the port.

Minister of Transport Mohamed Mansour announced in a press conference in early September that a development plan by Dutch company DHV for the east side of the port will be presented in October 2008. Mansour added that the development plan was presented to Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and will be completed over three phases.

Phase one is scheduled to commence in 2010, taking 10 years to complete, and will cover 12 kilometers along the desert coast. It will include the construction of a container handling station, freighter refueling station, petroleum storage containers, a logistics area which will include a hotel, hospital and various food outlets as well as a security and maintenance center, weighing-in center and parking areas. Phases two and three will cover a total area of 23 kilometers and will contain similar units.

Despite the Hisham Talaat Mostafa murder scandal and collapsing stock price, Talaat Mostafa Group (TMG) says it is still on course to establish operations in the UAE, after recent rumors regarding a possible pause or retraction of operations.

According to Gehad El-Sowafata, vice president of finance at TMG, the company is still on course to execute short and long term expansion plans both locally and abroad.

El-Sowafata said TMG is currently preparing final design plans for its 10 million square meter UAE project, which will be presented to the governor of Sharjah. The project will include a residential building and villa complex, and will be managed by a company specialized in running and maintaining closed-gate complexes.

In other news, following the recent London Stock Road Show organized by HSBC, 20 offers have been made by highly established investors and fund managers, who praised the current market stock price and its investment prospects. bt

The Nation in Brief was written by Jeff Neumann, Erika Sherk, Jessica Gray, Tamer Hafez, Rebecca Collard.