OCI profits up

EGYPT's leading private sector construction company, Orascom Construction Industries (OCI), posted a 58 per cent increase in its net profits during the second quarter of 2003 on the back of a regional construction boom.

The company's net profits came in at LE135.2 million, compared to LE80.4 on the corresponding period of last year.

A company statement said that the Egyptian Cement Company (ECC), in which OCI is a majority stakeholder, is benefiting from demand increases in neighbouring countries. Cement revenues accounted for 29 per cent of total quarterly revenues.

OCI was established in 1950 and focusses on three high growth sectors: construction, building materials production and infrastructure development. Last year it issued bonds worth LE one billion, in what is believed to be Egypt's biggest corporate bond issue ever. It is also one of nine Egyptian companies with shares traded in international markets in the form of global depository receipts.