FRA seeks to issue green bonds in 2020

CAIRO - 20 November 2019: The Egyptian Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) seeks to issue green bonds during 2020, FRA Chairman Mohmed Omran said Wednesday.

Omran added that the authority offers a 50-percent discount on examining and studying green bond issuance in an initial procedure to encourage organizations and investors to invest in it.

Omran added during a conference announcing the issuance of the first short-term securitization for the payment of Premium Card that the authority gets 1 of 1,000 of the public issuance and 0.5 of 1,000 of the private issuance, and these amounts are cut in half in such a step.

He clarified that this step came as a result of the amendments of the Capital Market Law no. 17 of 2018, which were based on three axes, including short-term securitization, green bonds, and Sukuk.

Omran added on the sidelines of the press conference, that the authority seeks to promote such markets, especially short-term debt instruments, as it seeks to finance the capital cycle as a whole, whether through free capital or public capital, which is clear in the law of leasing, finance and collection, explaining that the duration of trading of such instruments starts from 7 days and a maximum of two years.

The conference was attended by Founder and CEO of Premium International for Credit Services Paul Antaki, Co-Head of EFG Hermes' Investment Banking Division (IBD) Mostafa Gas, and CEO of Arab African International Bank Sherif Elwy.