Egypt, EBRD Ink Grants to Renovate Railway Transportation 

This morning, Egypt and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) inked two grants allocated for renovation of locomotives and development of railway freight system, worth 1.5 million euros (28 million pounds).

The signing event was attended by Minister of Investment and International Cooperation Dr. Sahar Nasr, and Mr. Khaled Hamza, deputy director of EBRD Egypt office and the Minister of Transportation Engineer Kamel El-Wazeer.

According to its official website, EBRD focus in Egypt, lies in modernising the financial sector, developing the agribusiness sector and municipal and infrastructure projects, while upgrading transport and telecommunications services.

European banks and other financial institutions need to speed up their preparations for the phasing out of a key interest rate benchmark which is used to price more than €24tn of derivatives, loans and bonds, a body advising the European Central Bank has warned, The Financial Times reported.

Financial markets are heading for confusion and legal disputes unless more is done to shift away from the Eonia interest rate benchmark, the head of the ECB’s working group overseeing the transition told the FT.

Eonia will be replaced by the €STR benchmark in early October, after a series of market manipulation scandals eroded confidence in the way the existing benchmark is calculated.

Steven van Rijswijk, the steering group head and chief risk officer at Dutch bank ING, told the FT: “I am worried about complacency among market participants, especially as regards the change in the timing of the publication of Eonia, which takes place already on October 2 and creates very significant operational challenges.”