The Institute of International Finance, the global association of the financial industry, has organized a number of virtual investor trips to key emerging markets, which bring together the IIF’s member base with local and regional stakeholders.

In our recent Virtual Investor Trip to Egypt on January 24-25, key senior government officials, representatives from the IMF, and private sector experts discussed the challenges that the Egyptian economy is facing. Among the key issues discussed were: (i) how to fund the large financing gap; (ii) how to support the development of the private sector; (iii) how to expand access of SMEs to bank financing; (iv) how to improve the net foreign assets position of banks; and (v) what policies and structural reforms are needed to recover macroeconomic stability and to achieve strong sustainable growth.

About 20 minutes was allocated to each speaker followed by a Q&A session that was moderated by Dr. Garbis Iradian, Chief Economist for MENA and Central Asia, IIF. We also solicited additional questions from the audience whenever possible.  As indicated in the schedule below, we had top level speakers, including the Governor of the CBE, the deputy Minister of Finance, the deputy Governor of the CBE, the IMF’s representative to Egypt, Fitch Ratings, Goldman Sachs, and the CEOs of major banks in Egypt.

 

Schedule
All times are in Washington, DC time (UTC-5:00)
For particiants based in London, add 5 hours to the times posted below
For participants based in Egypt, add 7 hours

January 24:
9:00am        H.E. Hassan El Sayed Abdalla, Governor, Central Bank of Egypt
9:30am        H.E. Ahmed Kouchouk, Vice Minister of Finance, Egypt
10:15am      George Abed, Distinguished Scholar in Residence, IIF
11:00am      Rami Abulnaga, Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Egypt
12:00pm      Said Bakhache, IMF Senior Resident Representative to Egypt, IMF

January 25:
8:30 am      Saleh Nsouli, Former IMF Director, USA
9:00 am      Mark Ahren, Lead Economist, World Bank
9:30 am      CEO Panel Discussion - Mohamed Eletreby, Banque Misr; Hisham Okasha, National Bank of Egypt; and Hussein Abaza, Commercial International Bank
10:30am     Toby Iles, Head of Middle East and Africa Sovereign Ratings, Fitch Ratings, UK
11:30am     Farouk Soussa, Head of MENA Economic Research, Goldman Sachs, UK