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More help for Egypt’s pharma industry
A consortium of local pharmaceutical companies aims to establish a raw materials factory next year at an investment ticket estimated to hover between USD 150-200 million, Asharq Business quotes chairman of the Arab Company for Drug Industries and Medical Appliances (ACDIMA) as saying. |
Who’s in?
Alongside ACDIMA, the group consortium will include the Suez Canal Economic Zone along with Egyptian International Pharmaceutical Industries – EIPICO.
Remember:
Egypt’s FX shortage, import restrictions, and inflation woes have hampered pharma companies efforts to bring in needed raw materials to boost domestic production, leading a number of key drugs — including ones for immune diseases, diabetes, and multiple sclerosis — to vanish from pharmacy shelves.
We wrote in August that the pharmaceutical division of the Federation of Egyptian Industries requested customs and tax exemptions for inactive pharmaceutical raw materials to help the ailing pharma industry. |
United Bank’s profits surge 78% in 9M
United Bank saw its net income rise 77.67% during the nine months ending in September to EGP 1.99 billion.
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Remember:
The retail offering for United Bank ended last week, with a 59x oversubscription rate. The offering provided 16.5 million shares — representing 5% of the overall offering — at 13.85 apiece.
The bank is currently valued at some EGP 15.77 billion, according to the latest data on Thndr.
More details:
The bank’s private offering, involving 313.5 million shares out of the total 330 million available, was also completed last week.
Refresher:
UB, along with its non-banking division, have an extensive network consisting of 68 branches and a workforce of 1,800 individuals, the CBE noted.
In June 2024, the bank’s total assets increased to EGP 106 billion, up from EGP 72 billion in 2021. |
Abu Qir Fertilizers and Chemical Industries plans to channel a USD 100 million investment by next year’s end in a bid to increase urea production capacity at one of its plants by approximately 10% to 1,925 tons per day, a government official told “Asharq” on the condition of anonymity. |
The details:
The company has already reportedly launched an international tender for the project and has received two bids, one from Germany’s ‘ThyssenKrupp’ and another from the Italian company ‘TECNIMONT.’
The technical and financial evaluation as well as the awarding processes are currently underway, and the company plans to select a contractor for the project by the end of the year.
Remember:
Urea factories must sell 55% of their monthly output to the Agriculture Ministry at a discounted price in return for subsidized natural gas.
This is expected to drive subsidized fertilizer prices to almost double from the current price of EGP 4500 to between 8-1000 in 2025, as we previously reported.
The company has not been doing so well, and increased output may help:
The firm recorded a 35.3% YoY fall in net income to EGP 1.28 billion during the period from July to the end of September 2024 (Q1 FY 2024-25). Abu Qir says that the country’s national gas shortages earlier this year affected its production capacity.
The company had incurred daily losses of EGP 65.54 million when it had to shutter its factories twice in June due to low gas supplies, we previously wrote. |
What else is clapping?
Emirati renewables giant Amea Power is set to bring online a 5 GW wind energy farm in the Gulf of Suez by Q1 2026. The project — in line with a state target to source 42% of its energy from renewable energy by 2030 — will cost about USD 600 million, Asharq reported.
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