France decided to write off five billion dollars from the debts of Sudan and Germany 360 million, and the international community in Paris promised to support the transitional process in this country, amid great hopes for the Sudanese government that the conference will contribute to its assistance in the reform process, payment of aid and write off debts.

Loans and debt write-offs
France announced a loan of 1.5 billion dollars to Sudan to allow Sudan to pay its arrears towards the International Monetary Fund, while the French President announced the cancellation of 5 billion of Khartoum’s debts.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that the Federal Republic of Germany will write off $ 372 million in bilateral debts with the African country.
Berlin will provide up to $ 109 million to help Sudan settle its debt arrears with the International Monetary Fund.

The economic working group emanating from the international follow-up committee on Libya confirmed its commitment to support the national unity government on its way to rebuilding Libya, after a decade of economic crises as a result of the political division in the African country.

Egypt, the European Union, and the United Nations Support Mission in Libya and the United States, in their capacity as co-chairs of the Economic Working Group of the International Follow-up Committee on Libya, held a virtual meeting for the plenary session in which they discussed ways to benefit from the experience of the international community and the Libyan Economic Experts Committee as resources to support the national unity government, parliament and institutions The other Libyan woman is working to confront the economic challenges that have resulted from years of division and conflict.

The participants emphasized the priority of providing basic services to the Libyan people, strengthening economic institutions, revitalizing the private sector, and improving the budget process, while affirming their full respect for Libyan sovereignty.

The Economic Working Group called on the Libyan government and the international community to work together to achieve common goals in order to accelerate development, increase job opportunities in the private sector, and improve the standard of living for the Libyan people.

They indicated that the World Bank, the United Nations, and the European Union could provide support to the unity government through a “Peacebuilding and Recovery Assessment” as a tool to review and prioritize development needs to support the country’s reconstruction.

Renewable energy grew last year at the fastest pace in two decades led by China, according to the International Energy Agency report, while it will continue to grow in the next two years. Renewable energy production rose 45% in 2020 to 280 gigawatts last year, the largest year-on-year increase since 1999, even despite disruptions in supply chains and delays in construction activity due to the impact of COVID-19.

Positive outlook
Regarding the global renewable energy market, the International Energy Agency expects that 270 gigawatts of new capacity will be added this year and about 280 gigawatts in 2022.
These forecasts are more than 25% higher than the agency’s previous forecast in November, as governments sold unprecedented quantities of renewable energy and companies signed a record number of power purchase agreements.

Governments sold 75 gigawatts of wind, onshore, solar PV, and bioenergy last year, up 20% from 2019.
“Wind and solar energy are giving us more reasons to be optimistic about our climate goals, breaking one record after another,” said agency executive director Fatih Birol. “The increase in renewable energy capacity last year accounted for 90% of the total growth in the global energy sector,” he added.

The hegemony of China
China accounted for 50% of the growth in renewable energy capacity last year, and it will account for 45% this year and 58% in 2022. According to the International Energy Agency.
The total installed renewable energy in the world reached nearly 2,800 gigawatts in 2020 and China has a proven renewable energy capacity of 895 gigawatts, greater than the following five countries combined, according to another report published by the “Trading Platform” website.

In 2020, China acquired about a third of the installed renewable energy capacity in the world (about 32%), about 895 gigawatts, and it comes second in the list of the United States with a capacity of 292 gigawatts.
The combined capacity of the United States, Brazil, India, Germany, and Canada reached 809 gigawatts in 2020, and Japan is the only country with a capacity greater than 100 gigawatts, and Italy and France each have 55 gigawatts capacity in 2020.

Global increase
Total renewable energy capacity increased by 10% in 2020 from 2,538 gigawatts in 2019 to 2799 in 2020, while it did not exceed 1,330 gigawatts in 2011.
Wind energy witnessed a growth of approximately 18% compared to last year, reaching 733 megawatts in 2020 from 622 megawatts in 2019, while solar energy achieved a growth of 21.6%, rising to 714 gigawatts in 2020 after the figure was in the range of 587 gigawatts in 2019.
The Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, believes that governments need to develop policies to encourage more investment in solar and wind energy and the additional network infrastructure they will require, in addition to other renewable energy technologies such as bioenergy and geothermal energy.

Standard & Poor’s “S&P” agency maintained the sovereign credit rating of Egypt in the local and foreign currencies as unchanged at the level of “B” K while also maintaining the stable outlook for the Egyptian economy for the third consecutive time since the beginning of the Corona crisis.

The rating agency indicated in a report issued on Friday evening that the Covid-19 pandemic affected Egypt’s tourism income, export revenues, and increased its external debt, but it sees the country’s ability to access international financing markets with the support of reserves to cover a temporary increase in external financing requirements according to Reuters”.

Egyptian Finance Minister Mohamed Maait commented on the agency’s report that the Egyptian economy, according to Standard & Poor’s estimates, can overcome the negative repercussions resulting from the pandemic due to the improvement of major economic indicators, such as the stability of public finances and the existence of a large and reassuring foreign exchange reserve.

The Egyptian minister expected that Egypt’s GDP growth will achieve 2.8% during the current fiscal year, as a result of the positive and high contribution of several sectors, especially the information technology sector, the health sector, government services, the wholesale and retail trade sector, and the agricultural sector, which reduced the impact of Corona on Tourism, aviation, manufacturing and petroleum sectors.

The Egyptian Deputy Minister of Finance for Fiscal Policy, Ahmed Koujok, said that government debt rates are expected to decline as a percentage of GDP, and the burden of the debt service bill will decrease due to the continuing achievement of a primary surplus of 2% of GDP in the coming years. This is as a result of the Ministry of Finance’s efforts to extend the life of the debt, which reached 3.2 years during 2020, targeting 3.6 years by the end of June 2021, in light of the low domestic interest rates, which was supported by the agency, according to Koçuk.

Tariq Abdel-Rahman, managing director of Compass Capital, believes that “the price of the pound is expected to drop against the dollar in the event of escalating tension with Ethiopia over the Renaissance Dam file, and the slowdown in the tourism sector’s recovery may also put pressure on Egypt’s foreign exchange resources due to the slow vaccination. In addition to international factors such as high prices of wheat, corn and oil, which causes an increase in the value of foreign currencies needed for import operations.

Regarding inflation figures; Abdel-Rahman believes that it will remain among the targets of the Central Bank of Egypt in the event that the flows of other dollar resources stabilize.