Supervision EU style THE CENTRAL Bank of Egypt (CBE) is to receive help from the EU in strengthening its banking supervision systems. A protocol signed by Farouk El-Oqda, CBE governor, Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank (ECB) and Klaus Ebermann, head of the European Commission delegation in Egypt, allows the ECB to extend its expertise on banking supervision to the CBE. Some 2.5 million Euros, provided by the European Commission under the MEDA programme, will be spent on bringing technical expertise from four national banks -- the Deutsche Bundesbank, the Bank of Greece, Banque de France and Banca d'Italia. The project, which will extend to between two and three years, involves developing new modules and standards of supervision capable of identifying and rectifying problems early on. The project complements the larger 15 million Euro EU assistance programme to the financial sector, under which six million Euros have been allocated to developing and restructuring the National Bank of Egypt and Banque Misr and two million Euros to developing the payment system infrastructure to allow for real time settlements of payments. The programme will be coordinated by two Eurosystem staff members based at the CBE in Cairo. The Eurosystem includes the ECB and the central banks of EU countries that are part of the Euro zone. Insurance profits up NET investment in the four public insurance companies rose by 7.6 per cent to LE13.955 million in fiscal year 2004/2005 compared to LE12.636 million the previous year. Shareholders' rights in the form of stocks, assets and retained profits rose by eight per cent to LE2.9 million in the same period compared to LE2.7 million last year. Policyholders' rights, divided between life and property insurance, increased to LE10.7 million. The four companies recorded an overall increase in net profits of 15 per cent, up from LE470 million to LE541 million. IDEAS in Egypt THE INTERNATIONAL Development Evaluation Association's (IDEAS) series of meetings in Egypt, scheduled between 15-19 November, aims at facilitating dialogue on cooperation. Decision-makers, academics and representatives from donor agencies, the press and civil society will attend. The goal of IDEAS is to promote improvements in development monitoring and evaluation by encouraging capacity building and forging partnerships between the developed, developing and transition economies. The association is working towards an international development evaluation culture, promoting results-oriented management, transparency and accountability in economic and social policy in an attempt to help financial and non-financial entities improve their performance on the economic, social and political fronts. According to resident representative and IDEAS board member Doha Abdel-Hamid, the association's strategic goals include enhancing awareness of development evaluation in underdeveloped settings, strengthening governance and accountability principles through developing channels of communication between the private sector, legislative and executive bodies and emphasising the role played by the non- government sector in poverty reduction and environmental conservation. The association, which has 500 members from around the globe, is seeking to engage the Egyptian evaluation community within a global context. IDEAS' website, www.ideas-int.org, includes studies, documents and papers on ways to improve development evaluation and its application. GAFI reviews strategy THE GENERAL Authority for Investment and Free Zones (GAFI) is reviewing its allocation of resources with the aim of creating a friendlier investment climate. "Our goal is to attract more investment and encourage investors to establish new projects," said GAFI Chairman Ziad Bahaaeddin. "We have identified three future roles: to promote investment in different sectors, to provide investor-related services and to help better the investment climate in the country." Bahaaeddin added that other less urgent tasks include upgrading free zones, encouraging more investment in neglected governorates and supporting activities related to financial leasing. Cairo and Alexandria's investor service complexes have both been the focus of recent attention, with the process of issuing approvals and licences now fully automated. The system is due to be implemented in other governorates. The authority has also conducted a regular series of opinion polls in an attempt to identify investment-related problems. According to Bahaaeddin these surveys allow the authority to focus its activities on areas most in need of attention. "They provide information on how to invest our resources and where, what non-tax incentives to provide, reasons behind bankruptcy, obstacles leading investment companies to quit the market and the best way re-schedule debts." Pre-school IT THE MINISTER of communications and information technology joined the minister of education to launch the KidSmart programme, an initiative sponsored by IBM that allows pre-school children access to information technology. Under the programme, 25 government schools in Cairo and Giza will receive 50 computers especially designed to appeal to children. "The world has been revolutionised by IT tools and we at IBM believe that education, innovation, and the ability to use such tools should be given to children at an early stage," said Hans Maerki, IBM chairman. Each school will receive two computers, designed to allow two or more children to work together. Special educational software has been translated into Arabic and covers basic skills in mathematics, science and creative writing using games as a teaching method. The programme also offers continuing education opportunities to pre-school teachers. Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab countries applying the programme, which operates in more than 50 countries worldwide. KidSmart is part of IBM's corporate social responsibility programme, and aims to provide remote and needy communities with IT resources.
