By Arcelor By Arcelor By Nasser Nasser By Keystone The Swiss are coming, in force.

By Ali Bahnasawy, Osama Diab, Nadine El Sayed, Jessica Gray, Lamia Hassan, Mariya Petkova, and Passant Rabie

The country's first solar power plant — and one of the biggest in the world — is scheduled to come online by the end of the year, officials announced last month.

The plant, now under construction south of Cairo, is part of a wave of renewable energy projects designed to reduce the country’s reliance on its dwindling supply of fossil fuels.

The array will be one of only four in the world capable of generating 140 megawatts (MW) of power annually, according to the Ministry of Electricity and Energy.

Meanwhile, a 120 MW wind farm is scheduled to open by the end of the year near Zaafarana. Officials have also said the Gulf of Suez will soon be home to the country’s first privately-run wind farm. The energy ministry also has long term plans to build a 1000 MW wind farm.

Backed by the energy-hungry European Union, Egypt has risen to the forefront of the renewable energy sector in Africa. The country is expected to play a key role in the Desertec project that plans to export power to Europe, North Africa and the Middle East via a network of solar plants by 2050.

While officials are touting the prospects of green energy, about 80% of new capacity is expected to come from non-renewable sources during the next five years.

The Algerian government has suspended a $750 million (LE 4.3 billion) deal with Ezz Steel that would have seen the metals giant build a plant in the western part of Algeria.

Experts say that freezing the deal is yet another setback for economic relations between Egypt and Algeria, which have been in a downward spiral since a pair of controversial football games between the two countries last year.

Ezz, Egypt’s biggest steel producer, signed a deal in 2007 to build a plant in Algeria’s Jijel region. The factory, part of Ezz Steel’s regional expansion plans, was to produce three million tons of steel rebar per year. Construction on the project never started.

Algerian investment minister Hammid Temmar reportedly asked Ezz to adjust the deal to fit a recently passed investment law that restricts foreign ownership in new Algerian businesses to 49%.

Temmar conceded that the tensions that arose out of two violence-filled World Cup qualifying matches in November affected the deal.

Meanwhile, news of the failure of the steel plant deal did not affect Ezz Steel’s shares on the Egyptian exchange. The company reported a 78% increase of net profit for 1Q2010. Strong local demand and recovering markets boosted the company’s profits from LE 59 million last year to LE 105 million this year.

The Algerian government has at least two candidates to replace Ezz Steel: Algerian-owned Cevital and the world’s biggest steel company, ArcelorMittal.

President Hosni Mubarak has killed a deal that would have seen an island in Lake Nasser sold to real estate developer Palm Hills, a company that has housing minister Ahmed El-Maghraby and former transport minister Mohamed Mansour as shareholders.

Following a heated committee session in Parliament, National Democratic Party member Farid Ismail, asked the government to clarify why Palm Hills had bought the 238-acre island in a public tender for LE 80 million in 2007, but had so far paid only LE 4 million.

The following day, Aswan governor Mostafa Ahmed El-Sayyed announced that President Mubarak ordered him to organize another public tender that would put the island up for a 49-year lease.

Mohamed Hassan, CEO of Masr Amon, the company that sold the island to Palm Hills, claimed that El-Maghraby withheld the balance of the LE 80 million payment, according to reports in the local press.

El-Maghraby refuted those claims, saying he is only a shareholder in Palm Hills and doesn’t make any decisions in the company, according to independent newspaper Al-Youm Al-Sabea.

Last month Telecom Egypt (TE) abandoned a bid for a controlling stake in Vodafone Egypt, the country’s second biggest mobile operator.

TE CEO Tarek Tantawy said the talks broke down after the company couldn’t agree on a selling price with Vodafone’s UK-based parent company.

TE owns 45% of Vodafone and has been looking to gain more clout in the mobile world as its core business, landline calling, continues to hemorrhage customers. TE lost 19.3% of its fixed-line subscribers from March 2009 to March 2010.

TE said earlier that it could apply for a mobile license if the government makes one available.

Analysts valued the remaining 55% stake in Vodafone Egypt at $3 billion (LE 17 billion).

Dairy giant Juhayna became last month the first company in almost two years to hold an IPO on the Egyptian Stock Exchange.

More than 41 million shares were sold to the public at LE 4.66 each. The company sold another roughly 160 million shares through a private placement. The process helped Juhayna raise a little over LE 1.1 billion.

Share prices remained steady at around LE 4.50 as of press time, with analysts predicting it will continue to do well in the weeks to come, rising to over LE 5.50.

The company has earmarked the new capital for an expansion of its food and beverage manufacturing business. There was some speculation the money was going to be used to recoup costs from a fire at one of the company’s manufacturing plants in April.

Production stopped at Juhayna’s Egyfood site in Cairo after a blaze gutted the plant responsible for 20% of the company’s total output, causing LE 300 million in damages. Juhayna has a 65% share of the dairy market.

In an ultimately ill-fated deal, South African telecom giant MTN offered $7.8 billion (LE 44.3 billion) for Orascom Telecom’s (OT) Algerian arm, OT chairman Naguib Sawiris revealed last month.

The deal for the unit, Djezzy, was eventually blocked by the Algerian government, which claimed the right of first refusal. OT has agreed to enter talks to sell Djezzy, the company’s most profitable division, to Algiers.

“I hope the Algerian government will enter the negotiations with good intentions,” Sawiris told Reuters news agency.

Anti-Egyptian sentiment has been on the rise in the North African state since last November’s hotly-contested decisive World Cup qualifier matches, during which OT was handed a $597 million (LE 3.3 billion) bill for back taxes.

The Administrative Court has overturned a regulatory decision that would have allowed Telecom Egypt (TE) to reduce the fees it pays to mobile operators to connect fixed-line phone calls to mobile phones.

In September 2008, Egypt’s telecom regulator had ruled that the interconnection rate be lowered after landline monopoly TE complained that the high fee was making it less competitive.

Mobinil, one of the country’s three mobile operators, appealed the ruling in September of 2009. On June 6 of this year, Cairo’s Administrative Court ruled in favor of Mobinil and overturned the regulatory ruling, canceling the lower fees and reinstating the original ones.

Omar El Sherif, a legal advisor to the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority was quoted in Al Shorouk newspaper as saying: “We will carefully study the ruling to determine the points of appeal and announce our measures at a later time.”

Egyptian companies placed highly in a lucrative international competition for up-and-coming small businesses.

BioBusiness, a medical equipment manufacturer, placed second and EG-Bioinformatics, a software producer, was third in the MIT Business Plan Competition. Held in Cairo last month, the event encourages entrepreneurship by offering cash prizes for innovative business plans.

BioBusiness won $15,000 (LE 85,000) for its second-place finish and EG-Bioinformatics took home $5,000 (LE 28,000). Little Engineer, a Lebanese engineering firm, won the competition and received $50,000 (LE 280,000).

Over 1,800 business hopefuls applied from 13 countries, though only nine were chosen to present their plans in front of the three-person panel in Cairo. Winners also receive mentoring, networking opportunities and further help expanding their companies.

BioBusiness and EG-Bioinformatics both said they plan to use the money to expand their businesses and attract new investors.

Local exports to Switzerland, Norway and Iceland have increased 170% since a free trade agreement was signed between Egypt and several European states in 2007, Minister of Trade Rachid Mohamed Rachid, said last month. He made the announcement during the opening of an Egyptian-Swiss business forum that took place in Egypt in June.

Rachid said trade with Switzerland more than doubled to $871 million (LE 4.9 billion) between 2005 and 2009. Exports from Egypt to Switzerland nearly tripled during the same period to $150 million (LE 850 million). Also, Swiss investments in Egypt reached $685 million (LE 3.9 billion) covering 354 different projects in the industrial, finance and tourism sectors.

Also, during the forum, Rachid signed another agreement with the Swiss minister of economy, Jean-Daniel Gerber, to increase the joint investments between the two countries and to enter new sectors, including pharmaceuticals, textiles, and informational technology. bt

Since the beginning of the year, authorities have seized at least seven tons of hashish as part of a country-wide crackdown on Egypt’s favored narcotic. While the busts have driven up the price of the drug, new statistics suggest the government has barely made a dent in an illegal narcotics industry worth LE 22 billion.

Egyptians spend LE 22 billion annually on narcotics, which represents about 2.5% of GDP. The majority of the money goes towards hashish.

About 9% of Egyptians, or seven million people, use drugs.

Around 12% of hashish users are in high school and university.

The price of the most common variety of hashish doubled to LE 200 per four grams following a series of major busts this year. It has since retreated.

Revenues from the illicit drug trade are equivalent to 80% of the income of the Suez Canal and 40% of the proceeds of the tourism industry.

Authorities arrested 45,000 drug traffickers and dealers in 2009 while seizing 10,000 tons of illegal narcotics.

Most of the country’s hashish comes from Sinai and the North Coast. It arrives in Cairo and other major cities via desert trade routes, which officials say are largely controlled by Bedouins.

5billion. The number of milk containers Egypt went through in 2009.

2The number, in years, that Egypt will delay enforcing a controversial ban on two-part semi trucks.

10billion. The value, in pounds, of projects the government is earmarking for public-private partnerships following the passage of a new law to encourage investment in everything from power plants to schools.

1.2billion. Amount, in dollars, of Chinese imports in 1Q2010, more than any other country.

Saudi Arabia’s King Saud University is seeking private partners to produce the country’s first locally-designed automobile, the Ghazal 1. Engineers from the university spent two years working on the SUV, which is designed to withstand desert conditions.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has asked regional giant Emaar Properties to invest in the nation’s nascent oil industry. Oil reserves estimated at around 2 billion barrels were recently discovered near the nation’s border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. Uganda has said it wants to become a major oil exporter.

Emirate Airlines has ordered 32 more double-decker Airbus A380s at a cost of $11.5 billion (LE 65.3 billion). This will bring Emirates’ fleet of A380s to 90, the most of any airline. The second-largest fleet belongs to the Australian carrier Qantas, with 20.

Arab countries are expected to average 4% GDP growth for 2010, according to Arab Monetary Fund chief Jassim Al-Mannai. He told media that the Greek crisis would likely have little effect on growth rates in petrol-rich North African and Middle Eastern countries, as rising oil prices will drive up revenues.

The Nation in Brief was written by Ali Bahnasawy, Osama Diab, Nadine El Sayed, Jessica Gray, Lamia Hassan, Mariya Petkova, and Passant Rabie