President Mubarak will hold an urgent meeting today with Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) Governor Farouq Al-Uqda and ministers of the economic group to review the steps needed ...

President Mubarak will hold an urgent meeting today with Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) Governor Farouq Al-Uqda and ministers of the economic group to review the steps needed to face the repercussions of the world economic crisis on Egypt. Al-Uqda suspended his visit to the Annual Fall Conference in New York and arrived in Cairo to follow up the crisis repercussions. Nazif is to hold a press conference today at the presence of Al-Uqda and the Minister of Investment to review the world crisis repercussions, the expected effects on the Egyptian economy and the measures that should be taken to face this situation. For his part, Cabinet's Spokesman Madgi Radhi said the Cabinet's meeting next Tuesday would discuss ways of facing the world crisis's negative impacts on Egypt. Mr. Nazif met with Al-Uqda following his return from the US. They said the world crisis may affect three main domains. The first is the banking and financial sector. Al-Uqda affirmed that the banking reform plan previously carried out has contributed to strengthening the financial sector and enabled it to face any internal or external pressures. The second domain is the stock exchange, which is part of the world capital market. Therefore, he said it was normal that the bourse was now being affected by world events.   The third domain is the entire Egyptian economy and the growth rate. The government is accurately following up external transactions starting with the Suez Canal, as world trade could be affected. However, the government is also keeping a close eye on tourism, foreign investments and exports. For their part, experts in the capital market expected today's transactions at the stock exchange to be affected by the decline of the Egyptian companies' global depository receipt (GDR) registered at the London Stock Exchange last Friday. The Stock Exchange board will hold a meeting today to consider how to face the crisis and its effects on the performance of the Egyptian capital market.   Speaking to Al-Masry Al-Youm, Stock Exchange board member Hamdi Mahran said the meeting is due to discuss liberating Egyptian benchmark Case 30 index from the global depository receipt (GDR) and to deal with hot money and purchase and sale operations. (Source: Almasry Alyoum)