CAIRO: Negotiations with the Emirati firm Capital City Partners (CCP) over the construction of Egypt’s new administrative capital city are to be finalized soon; Housing Minister Mostafa Madbouly was quoted by Youm7 Thursday.
The statement came after several media outlets on Wednesday said that the Egyptian government terminated the new capital’s Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in March due to a financial dispute with Chairman of Dubai Emaar Mohamed Alabbar who established CCP company in order to implement the project.
“Abbar and the Egyptian government are still negotiating the funds pumped by each side in the first phase of the project; expected to take around seven years with a total cost estimated at 6 billion EGP,” sources told Youm7.
Alabbar also voiced his concern over the delay in issuing the long-awaited investment law which lays down guarantees for deals signed with the government and offers incentives to finance labour-intensive projects, said the source.
Moreover, there is a delay from the side of the General Organization for Physical Planning (GOPP) in issuing the real estate regulations, which include important proposals to regulate real estate market in the future and insure ending the investment conflicts with the government, he added.
“The unavailability of trained Egyptian labor and the incapability of the Egyptian factories to provide the construction raw materials of iron and cement, as the factories do not work with its full capacity, will be an obstacle in Alabbar’s way in implementing the project,” the source said.
On March 14, Madbouly signed an agreement with the UAE government to establish a new administrative capital city “Cairo Capital” halfway between Cairo and the Suez Canal area.
The deal was signed on sidelines of the Egypt Economic Development Conference (EEDC), held in the Red Sea resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh in March.
Madbouly said that the project will be accomplished within five to seven years with a total cost estimated at $ 45 billion and that it “aims mainly to alleviate congestion, urban crowding and overpopulation in Cairo,” currently home to over 23 million people; it will also cost some $300 billion to complete, according to Alabbar.
He added that a committee has been formed to review the details of the project to ensure maximum benefit for middle to low-income citizens.