An EGP 15,000 minimum wage by 2030

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Parliament spent two closed sessions on El-Sisi’s request to defend Saudi Arabia, then put the vote off for a week. The roll call was under way as this edition went out, and it needs 398 of 596 votes to pass.

Most of the rest of the week happened at the first Egypt Forum, which ended on Saturday with a plan to nearly double the minimum wage by 2030 and a decision to hold the forum every year. The dollar, meanwhile, went through EGP 55.

Let’s get into it.

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• Egypt Forum ends with a plan to nearly double the minimum wage 🇪🇬

• Parliament puts off the vote on defending Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦

• The dollar passes EGP 55

EGYPT FORUM | WAGES | DIALOGUE
EGYPT FORUM ENDS WITH PLAN TO DOUBLE MINIMUM WAGE

The first Egypt Forum ran from Monday to Saturday in the New Administrative Capital, with more than 8,000 people in the room picked from over 61,000 who applied. It closed with a set of recommendations, some of which have already been turned into presidential directives, and with El-Sisi announcing that the forum will now be held every year.

What was promised: The minimum wage rises from EGP 8,000 to EGP 15,000 by the 2029/30 fiscal year, and teachers’ minimum income reaches EGP 15,000 within two years. One million housing units are to be built over four years at a cost of about EGP 1 trillion, with the Tahya Misr Fund. Egyptian-Japanese schools go from 103 to 500 within three years and evening school shifts are phased out by 2029. There are to be 1,000 more ambulances, close to 30 gigawatts of renewable capacity by the end of 2028, and public spending on services rising from EGP 2.3 trillion to EGP 4.8 trillion by 2029/30 “without imposing additional tax burdens on citizens.”

The government’s own targets: Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly presented a National Economic Transformation Programme for 2027 to 2030: growth up from 5.1 percent to 6.8 percent, inflation down to between 5 and 7 percent, investment up from 12.7 percent of GDP to 20 percent, and the private sector’s share of it up from 57.7 percent to 67 percent, with a wider tax base and no new taxes. It goes to public consultation first and is meant to be finalised by the end of December. Finance Minister Ahmed Kouchouk set a target of public debt below 70 percent of GDP by June 2030.

El-Sisi’s closing: “We chose the harder path,” he said on Saturday. “The cost of this path has borne heavily upon the Egyptian citizen.” And: “We did not possess the luxury of waiting or postponing tough decisions.” From next year the forum will be annual, with one sector in focus each month, and its decisions will be posted online and followed by the Presidency. At the opening on Monday he had said that “individuals pass, but Egypt endures.”

SAUDI ARABIA | THE HOUTHIS | PARLIAMENT
PARLIAMENT DELAYS VOTE ON DEFENDING SAUDI ARABIA

Egypt’s House of Representatives debated El-Sisi’s request in two closed sessions on Sunday and Monday, then adjourned the vote to a roll call on Monday 26 October. Under Article 152 of the constitution, sending forces on a combat mission abroad needs the approval of the National Defence Council and two-thirds of the House, which is 398 of its 596 members. That session was under way, again behind closed doors, as this edition went out.

The council said yes first: On Sunday morning the National Defence Council, chaired by El-Sisi, approved “all necessary and possible forms of support” for Saudi Arabia, alongside continued diplomatic efforts to calm the region. Parliament sat that afternoon in secret, under Article 130 of its internal rules, and members were told not to disclose what was said. Monday’s session opened two hours late because the Speaker was at the opening of Egypt Forum 2026, and around 300 MPs asked to speak.

Where the doubts came from: The Egyptian Social Democratic Party, which has 11 seats, told its members to abstain, saying national security “requires clarity of objectives” and warning against “an open-ended commitment.” One of them, Maha Abdel Nasser, argued for a diplomatic solution instead. Ahmed Farghaly of the economic committee abstained over the cost to the economy, to soldiers and to the canal, and three more MPs, Mahmoud Samy, Diaa El-Din Dawood and Mohamed Abdel Alim Dawood, said on Sunday that they would abstain too. Mostafa Bakry gave the opposite account: “There was an overwhelming majority,” he said, and “no MP has rejected the authorisation.” The pro-government parties hold 403 of the 568 elected seats, enough on paper to reach 398 on their own.

Outside the chamber: Ayman Nour, the exiled leader of the Ghad Party, called defending Saudi Arabia “an Arab duty” but said “authorisation is not a blank cheque,” and proposed ten safeguards including a fixed duration and a defined area of operation; he pointed to Egypt’s intervention in Yemen in the 1960s, which many Egyptians still call Egypt’s Vietnam. Hamdeen Sabahi said Egypt should be “a sponsor of reconciliation.” Al-Azhar called for “an immediate and comprehensive halt” to the fighting. And the speaker of the Houthi-run parliament in Sanaa wrote to his Egyptian counterpart warning that intervention “would pose a grave threat to Egypt’s national security and internal stability.”

Meanwhile, the war did not wait: A strike on Dammam’s King Fahd airport on Wednesday killed a Saudi national and an Indian resident, and two more people died at the Shaybah oilfield. On Saturday, debris from intercepted missiles fell around Makkah, Jeddah and Taif without casualties. On the diplomatic side, Abdelatty called for “exploring all avenues for reaching political solutions,” and he and intelligence chief Hassan Rashad carried a written message from El-Sisi to King Salman, received by the Crown Prince on Wednesday. Riyadh’s King Khalid airport partially reopened on Sunday after two weeks shut, and the Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Saree, promptly called it a military target and warned airlines and travellers not to use it. Saudi air defences intercepted a fresh barrage aimed at Riyadh and the south the same day.

THE POUND | BUDGET | OIL
THE DOLLAR PASSES EGP 50

The dollar went past EGP 55 for the first time on Thursday, closing at 55.35 at the National Bank of Egypt, Banque du Caire and Suez Canal Bank, and 55.37 at Al Baraka. The pound has lost about 13.8 percent since the end of February, when it stood at around 47.72, before the US-Iran war escalated.

The bill behind it: Brent crude went above USD 117 a barrel on Friday for the first time since March. This year’s budget assumed USD 75. Finance Minister Ahmed Kouchouk put energy subsidies at EGP 840 billion this year, close to EGP 1 trillion once the cost of the borrowing behind them is included. At the Forum, Madbouly laid out three ways to handle it: pass the cost to consumers, absorb it, or cut fuel imports by 40 to 50 percent. For now the state is absorbing it, and he denied reports that the plan involves six to eight hours of power cuts a day.

What the central bank says: Governor Hassan Abdalla reaffirmed the flexible exchange rate and told people there was no cause for alarm. The bank’s next rate decision is on Thursday 29 October. At the Forum it also set a goal of making the pound convertible within five years.

A deposit falls due: Saudi Arabia holds USD 10.3 billion in deposits at the Central Bank, and a USD 5.3 billion tranche matures this month. Neither government has said whether it will be rolled over.

Worth holding together: Last week Moody’s upgraded Egypt and S&P held steady, and both cited the flexible exchange rate as one of the reforms that made Egypt sturdier. This week that same mechanism is what moved the pound. The rating agencies were rewarding Egypt for letting the currency absorb shocks; a war that keeps pushing oil higher is that policy being tested.