North Africa/Middle East

Egypt is fully able to meet its international debt obligations, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said, looking to ease market concerns over the North African nation’s economic situation, Bloomberg News reported.

The government's plan to overhaul the judicial system is harming investor confidence and pushing high-tech firms to relocate abroad, Israel's state-backed agency that supports high-tech companies said on Monday, Reuters reported. A survey by the Israel Innovation Authority found 80% of startups established so far this year were opened outside Israel and that companies also intend to register their future intellectual property overseas - which would result in a severe blow to Israel's tax coffers.

A European judicial team pressed on with its corruption probe of Lebanon's embattled Central Bank governor on Thursday, questioning one of his aides and summoning his brother for another hearing next week, the Associated Press reported. The delegation from France, Germany, and Luxembourg is on its third visit to Lebanon to interrogate suspects and witnesses in an ongoing investigation of Gov. Riad Salameh and associates over several financial crimes and the laundering of some $330 million.

Lebanese authorities and a European judicial team on Tuesday agreed to exchange information about their separate corruption probes of Lebanon's Central Bank governor, officials said, the Associated Press reported. The announcement came during a visit by a European delegation from France, Germany, and Luxembourg — its third visit to Lebanon to interrogate suspects and witnesses in an ongoing investigation of Governor Riad Salameh and associates over several financial crimes.

Lebanon’s first official devaluation in a quarter century fired up consumer prices in March, with food and beverage inflation exceeding an annual 350% as authorities struggle to contain the crash in the world’s worst performing currency this year, Bloomberg News reported. A decision in February to allow the pound to weaken by 90% has ended last year’s relative respite from galloping costs in Lebanon, whose economy cratered and forced the government to default on $30 billion of international debt in 2020.

Egyptian bonds slumped after S&P Global Ratings took a far more downbeat view of the nation’s finances than the International Monetary Fund, forecasting further currency depreciation and lowering its outlook to negative, Bloomberg News reported. Dollar bonds maturing in 2025 dropped 1.6 cents on Monday while notes maturing in 2032 fell 0.9 cents, pushing their yields to 20.2% and 17.4% respectively, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. As of 4 p.m. in London, Egyptian debt of varying maturities made up nine of the ten worst-performing bonds in emerging markets on the day.

The Abu Dhabi Global Market's (ADGM) Registration Authority is seeking feedback on its proposed legislative framework for distributed ledger technology (DLT), targeting disclosures, liquidation and governance structures, CoinDesk.com reported. The ADGM is an international finance center within the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has a bespoke licensing regime for virtual asset service providers supervised by its financial regulator. The authority is not the ADGM’s financial watchdog, so the proposal is limited to tackling matters of service type and governance.

Italy on Thursday pledged Tunisia a host of investments and help negotiating an International Monetary Fund bailout as the European nation seeks to stem the number of migrants arriving from North Africa, the Associated Press reported. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani outlined Italy’s efforts and pledges during a meeting with his Tunisian counterpart, Nabil Ammar, who insisted that Tunisia has seen growing numbers of African migrants arriving from the Libyan border and needs economic help.

Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank PJSC is said to be in talks with funds to sell 13.5 billion dirhams ($3.7 billion) worth of soured loans, as the emirate’s second-largest lender steps up efforts to clean up its books, Bloomberg News reported. The bank is exploring the sale of a retail portfolio that includes car loans, private and credit-card debt, most of which are held by expatriate workers, people familiar with the matter said. Emirati nationals still owe ADCB — as the bank is known — far more money on average, they added, asking not to be identified because the information is private.