Back to the complete issue
Thursday, 30 March 2017

Spotlight on the Cityscape Egypt conference

We stopped in on the Cityscape Egypt real estate conference yesterday, where we are proud to have seen our friends at SODIC win two awards. The real estate developer took home hardware for the Best Community, Culture & Tourism Project Award for its Westown Medical Centre project and Best Commercial Project Award for its office park, the Polygon. SODIC has received several awards in recent years for projects within SODIC West, including two Euromoney awards for best office / business developer for the Polygon and best residential developer for SODIC West in 2014 and 2016. It previously took home Cityscape awards for Polygon and Allegria in 2013.

We also attended two talks by government officials. Highlights of their remarks:

Khaled Abbas, Assistant Housing Minister:

  • The government is apparently still in talks with China Fortune Land Development Company, which had announced it was investing USD 20 bn in the New Administrative Capital. The company finished the master plan and negotiations are revolving around financing for the project. It will be clear in about two months if the MoU to develop 14,000 feddans will turn into a contract or not, Abbas said.
  • The Ministry is only considering partnerships with large private-sector developers in the new capital and will be tendering larger land plots for development.
  • The Housing Ministry will tender land of up to 100 feddans for medium-sized developers within a week to ten days, Abbas said, without specifying where.

Assem El Gazzar, chairman of the General Organization for Physical Planning:

  • Space for urban development cannot keep up with Egypt’s population growth rate of 2 mn a year.
  • Affordable housing is the biggest challenge for the Ministry.
  • Generating job opportunities in new urban communities is what makes housing projects successful. Developments need to create economic value by housing commercial buildings.

Enterprise is a daily publication of Enterprise Ventures LLC, an Egyptian limited liability company (commercial register 83594), and a subsidiary of Inktank Communications. Summaries are intended for guidance only and are provided on an as-is basis; kindly refer to the source article in its original language prior to undertaking any action. Neither Enterprise Ventures nor its staff assume any responsibility or liability for the accuracy of the information contained in this publication, whether in the form of summaries or analysis. © 2022 Enterprise Ventures LLC.

Enterprise is available without charge thanks to the generous support of HSBC Egypt (tax ID: 204-901-715), the leading corporate and retail lender in Egypt; EFG Hermes (tax ID: 200-178-385), the leading financial services corporation in frontier emerging markets; SODIC (tax ID: 212-168-002), a leading Egyptian real estate developer; SomaBay (tax ID: 204-903-300), our Red Sea holiday partner; Infinity (tax ID: 474-939-359), the ultimate way to power cities, industries, and homes directly from nature right here in Egypt; CIRA (tax ID: 200-069-608), the leading providers of K-12 and higher level education in Egypt; Orascom Construction (tax ID: 229-988-806), the leading construction and engineering company building infrastructure in Egypt and abroad; Moharram & Partners (tax ID: 616-112-459), the leading public policy and government affairs partner; Palm Hills Developments (tax ID: 432-737-014), a leading developer of commercial and residential properties; Mashreq (tax ID: 204-898-862), the MENA region’s leading homegrown personal and digital bank; Industrial Development Group (IDG) (tax ID:266-965-253), the leading builder of industrial parks in Egypt; Hassan Allam Properties (tax ID:  553-096-567), one of Egypt’s most prominent and leading builders; and Saleh, Barsoum & Abdel Aziz (tax ID: 220-002-827), the leading audit, tax and accounting firm in Egypt.