CIVETS Watch: Egypt's Business Activity Shows Signs of Reviving

It has been five months since Egypt’s revolution, and its transition to the post-Mubarak era has been anything but easy. At long last, there are signs that business is beginning to move again. Even foreign companies are beginning to get past their fears about the country’s future.

A few of the latest developments:
 

• Shares of Palm Hills, a major property developer, rose 2% Tuesday even after it reported a quarterly loss. Reports circulated that it might be near a settlement with the government over its purchases of state land during the regime of ex-President Hosni Mubarak. Investigations of alleged corruption in land sales have been a focus of the government and courts since Mubarak’s overthrow. The unconfirmed report pulled up Egypt’s main stock index, EGX30, by 1.1% to 5,613.
  
  
• The shopping mall developer that famously built an indoor ski slope in Dubai said that sales at its Cairo mall are back to pre-revolution levels, so it’s going ahead with plans for a second, 1.7 million-square-foot, mall in the city at an estimated cost of $760 million, and another project in Maadi, a wealthy suburb, called City Centre. Dubai-based Majid Al Futtaim Group’s Cairo and Alexandria malls were looted during the revolution.
  
  Company CEO Iyad Malas told Bloomberg News that the new Egyptian government “is trying to do everything it can to support investors and I think that will continue.”
  
  
• Three American tech giants recently committed to new projects in Egypt. Hewlett-Packard (HP) will provide business skills training and consulting to Egyptian hardware companies. Cisco (CSCO) will invest $10 million in venture capital in small businesses that are developing innovating products and services. And, Motorola Solutions (MSI) will open a regional office for the Middle East and North Africa in Cairo.
  
  Egypt was establishing itself as an outsourcing location for Western countries before its revolution halted progress.
  
  
• Italian conglomerate Italcementi will build Egypt’s first privately owned wind farm to generate power for Suez Cement, a subsidiary. The wind farm at the edge of the Red Sea will be built at a cost estimated at $200 million. It has the potential to prevent 257,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, according to environmental news site Green Prophet. It also will help keep the company operating during the hottest months, when Egypt’s power grid tends to collapse under the strain of demand.
  
  
• Official travel warnings have been eased by nations around the world, reports the Arab news site Ahram, citing Egypt’s tourism ministry. Visitor numbers fell 46% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2011, during and just after the revolution. The U.S., Japan and Australia all now advise travelers to “exercise caution” when visiting Egypt.
  
  The latest posting by the U.S. State Department, dated April 28, lifts the “ordered departure status” that urged Americans to get out of Egypt, and replaces it with an “alert” to the possibility of “sporadic unrest.” The site also has a “worldwide” caution for Americans, warning of “the continued threat of terrorist attacks, demonstrations, and other violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests overseas.” (Here’s the short version: Egypt isn’t mentioned, but stay the hell out of Mogadishu.)

In Brief:

Chiquita Defends Terrorist Payments: A judge in Florida has refused to halt a lawsuit against Cincinnati-based produce company Chiquita Brands (CQB) brought by 4,000 family members of victims of Colombian terrorists, the BBC reports.

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