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Egypt Predicts 5.6% Economic Growth

A general view of buildings by the Nile River in Cairo, Egypt January 28, 2021. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
A general view of buildings by the Nile River in Cairo, Egypt January 28, 2021. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
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Egypt Predicts 5.6% Economic Growth

A general view of buildings by the Nile River in Cairo, Egypt January 28, 2021. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
A general view of buildings by the Nile River in Cairo, Egypt January 28, 2021. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

Egyptian Minister of Planning and Economic Development Hala Al-Saeed said that the country was expected to have an economic growth of 5.6% in the 2021-2022 fiscal year.

“Egypt has firmly faced the Covid-19 crisis thanks to the reforms implemented since 2016,” the ministry’s Facebook page quoted the minister as saying during an event on Tuesday.

She continued: “Despite the economic repercussions of the pandemic, economic growth is expected to rebound strongly to 5.6% in the fiscal year 2021-2022,” which concludes at the end of June 2022.

Saeed noted that Egypt ranked second among the most attractive Arab destinations for foreign direct investment in 2020 and was the largest recipient of foreign direct investment in Africa the same year, with inflows into the country representing 15% of the total USD39.8 billion coming to the continent.

The Egyptian government has invested in infrastructure in recent years, the minister remarked, explaining that the government’s participation was necessary to stimulate growth and pave the way for the engagement of the private sector.

Minister of International Cooperation Rania Al-Mashat said, for her part, that the Board of Executive Directors of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank approved a financing of USD360 million for Egypt.

The minister added that the funding aimed to support the state’s efforts to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and to strengthen the economic and structural reform program.

This comes as Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly announced on Tuesday that his country intended to list five to six state-owned companies on the stock exchange before the end of the current fiscal year.

He added that the move was intended to stimulate trading in the Egyptian Stock Exchange, which recorded the worst performance this year among emerging markets.

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Italy in Talks with US, Azerbaijan, Algeria to Offset Loss of Gas from Qatar

A general view shows cisterns at the deposit of an oil site, in Rome on March 19, 2026. (Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP)
A general view shows cisterns at the deposit of an oil site, in Rome on March 19, 2026. (Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP)
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Italy in Talks with US, Azerbaijan, Algeria to Offset Loss of Gas from Qatar

A general view shows cisterns at the deposit of an oil site, in Rome on March 19, 2026. (Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP)
A general view shows cisterns at the deposit of an oil site, in Rome on March 19, 2026. (Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP)

Italy is talking to several countries, including the United States, Azerbaijan and Algeria, to secure gas supplies now that Iranian strikes on Qatar appear to have halted its exports for an extended period, Energy Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin said.

Iranian attacks have knocked out 17% of Qatar's liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity, causing an estimated $20 billion in lost annual revenue and ⁠threatening supplies to Europe ⁠and Asia, QatarEnergy's CEO told Reuters on Thursday.

"The very fact that Qatar's LNG plant that had been shut down was also bombed had a devastating impact on prices," Pichetto Fratin said on Friday attending ⁠an event in Milan.

Edison, an Italian unit of French power company EDF, has a long-term contract with QatarEnergy for the supply of 6.4 billion cubic meters of gas per year to Italy, nearly 10% of the country's annual gas consumption.

Qatar had already declared force majeure on gas exports earlier this month, flagging to Edison it would not be ⁠able ⁠to fulfill its contractual obligations concerning April.

The pause in supplies is likely be longer-lasting after its gas infrastructures were hit hard this week, QatarEnergy's CEO said.

Pichetto Fratin said on Friday that despite the disruption in supplies from the Middle East, Italy had agreed with the European Union that the bloc should not return to buying its gas from Russia.

Business

Shell: Repair of Second Unit at Pearl Facility in Qatar to Take About a Year

A digital price sign is seen at a Shell gasoline station in San Francisco, California, USA, 18 March 2026. EPA/JOHN G. MABANGLO
A digital price sign is seen at a Shell gasoline station in San Francisco, California, USA, 18 March 2026. EPA/JOHN G. MABANGLO
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Shell: Repair of Second Unit at Pearl Facility in Qatar to Take About a Year

A digital price sign is seen at a Shell gasoline station in San Francisco, California, USA, 18 March 2026. EPA/JOHN G. MABANGLO
A digital price sign is seen at a Shell gasoline station in San Francisco, California, USA, 18 March 2026. EPA/JOHN G. MABANGLO

Shell said on Friday that full repair of its train two at the Pearl GTL (gas-to-liquids) facility in Qatar would ⁠take around a ⁠year, confirming a statement to Reuters from QatarEnergy, after Iranian ⁠attacks earlier this week.

Shell said train one at the facility was not damaged, and its QatarEnergy LNG N(4), which Shell has ⁠a ⁠30% interest in and which equates to 2.4 MTPA of equity production, was not impacted.

Shell has a 100% interest in Pearl GTL in Qatar, which has capacity to process up to 1.6 billion cubic ⁠feet ⁠per day of wellhead gas, converting it into 140,000 bpd of gas-to-liquids.

Business

US Stocks Sink on Fears the War with Iran will Keep Interest Rates High

A bobble head depicting US President Donald Trump sits on a desk as traders works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) at the opening bell in New York City, on April 14, 2025. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP)
A bobble head depicting US President Donald Trump sits on a desk as traders works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) at the opening bell in New York City, on April 14, 2025. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP)
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US Stocks Sink on Fears the War with Iran will Keep Interest Rates High

A bobble head depicting US President Donald Trump sits on a desk as traders works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) at the opening bell in New York City, on April 14, 2025. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP)
A bobble head depicting US President Donald Trump sits on a desk as traders works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) at the opening bell in New York City, on April 14, 2025. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP)

US stocks are sinking Friday as hopes wither on Wall Street for a possible cut to interest rates by the Federal Reserve this year because of the war with Iran.

The S&P 500 fell 0.9% and was on track for a fourth straight losing week, its longest such streak in a year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 285 points, or 0.6%, as of 10:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.2% lower.

Stocks sank under the weight of leaping yields in the bond market. They will make mortgage rates and other borrowing more expensive for US households and companies, slowing the economy, and they grind down on prices for all kinds of investments. Treasury yields have been jumping since the war began because it could cause a long-term spike in oil and natural gas prices that drives up inflation, The AP news reported.

Worries have gotten so high that traders have canceled nearly all their bets that the Federal Reserve could cut interest rates this year, according to data from CME Group. Some even see a possibility for a rate hike in 2026, which was a nearly unthinkable scenario before the war began.

Lower interest rates would give the economy and investment prices a boost, and they're something President Donald Trump has angrily been calling for. Before attacks by the United States and Israel began the war with Iran, traders were betting heavily that the Fed would cut interest rates at least twice this year.

But lower rates risk worsening inflation. And with oil prices so much higher now, investors see little room for central banks worldwide to cut interest rates to help their economies. Besides the Federal Reserve, central banks in Europe, Japan and the United Kingdom also held their interest rates steady this past week.

Friday's worries came even as oil prices calmed a bit. A barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, added 0.3% to $109.02 after drifting lower earlier in the morning. Benchmark US crude rose 0.3% to $95.78 per barrel.

The price of Brent has zigzagged sharply on its way there from roughly $70 per barrel before the war began. Big swings up and down have struck hour to hour as financial markets try to handicap how long the war will last and how much damage it will do to oil and gas production in the Arabian Gulf.

Much of the focus is on the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway off Iran’s coast. A fifth of the world’s oil typically sails through it, but Iran has effectively closed it to its enemies.

On Wall Street, Super Micro Computer dropped 28% and helped drag the US stock market lower. The US government accused a senior vice president of the company and two others affiliated with it of conspiring to smuggle billions of dollars of computer servers containing advanced Nvidia chips to China.

The company said it’s cooperated with the investigation and is not a defendant in the indictment. It placed its two accused employees on administrative leave and terminated its relationship with an accused contractor.

On the winning side of Wall Street was FedEx, which rose 2.2% after delivering a much stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury jumped to 4.37% from 4.25% late Thursday and from just 3.97% before the war started. That's a significant move for the bond market.

The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for what the Fed will do, jumped to 3.92% from 3.79% late Thursday and is near its highest level since the summer.

Outside of Wall Street, indexes fell in Europe following their wipeouts on Thursday. Indexes also sank in China, though South Korea’s Kospi added 0.3%.