Cairo – Mubasher: - Orascom Development Egypt announced several measures against the negative implications of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.   

The company decided to cut capital expenditures (CAPEX) to keep the necessary items only, delay and freeze new hires, slash all expenses, including marketing expenses, and push back all government dues where possible and debt service payments for six months under the decree of the Central Bank of Egypt, according to a bourse disclosure on Sunday.

Despite being hardly hit by the pandemic, the company's real estate sales slightly rose during the first quarter of 2020.

The net value of contracted units reached EGP 1.53 billion in Q1-20, compared to EGP 1.522 billion in the year-ago period.

On the other hand, the number of contracted units fell to 240 in the January-March period of 2020, down from 311 in the corresponding period a year earlier.

It is noteworthy that during 2019, Orascom Egypt Development logged net profits of EGP 705.55 million, up from EGP 500.19 million in 2018, including minority shareholders’ rights.