New Administrative Capital to be Egypt’s first smart city: official

CAIRO – 14 July 2018: Implementation of housing units in the New Administrative Capital was successfully completed, but delivery will be within a year, until the completion of installing facilities and services, Khalid Abbas, deputy minister of housing for follow-up of national projects, said on Friday.

He added in a phone interview on DMC that the ministry will offer 2,048 housing units in the capital’s first phase, with different spaces and payment methods. Abbas noted that for the first time the reservation of units will be electronic, allowing clients to choose their units, pointing out that the New Administrative Capital will be the first smart residential city in Egypt.

The new capital is planned to be a sustainable city, housing the ministries, parliament, Egyptian Media Production City, presidential palaces, and embassies.

Twenty-five public and private construction companies have been mandated to carry out the infrastructure projects and build the residential neighborhoods of the new capital, while the army is only responsible for managing the project.

The company provided about 170,000 jobs in the construction operations and the coming phases of the project will require more workers, stressing that the state treasury does not bear the burden of financing any phase of the project.

Housing prices in Cairo will decline significantly in the coming years because of the rise of supply in the market after completing the construction of the planned 350,000 housing units in the capital.

The New Administrative Capital Company is 51% owned by the armed forces and 49% by the New Urban Communities Authority (NUCA). The paid-up capital of the company amounts to EGP 20bn, including contributions from the armed forces and NUCA, and the authorized capital is EGP 204bn.

President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi has laid the first stone of the New Administrative Capital in East Cairo on Wednesday. With an area of 170,000 feddans, the new capital will include 20 residential areas expected to accommodate 6.5 million people and a road network 650 km in length. The capital will include an international airport and an electric train to link it with the 10th of Ramadan and El-Salam cities.

It will feature 1,250 mosques and churches, a 5,000-seat conference center, nearly 2,000 schools and colleges, over 600 medical facilities, and a park that is projected to be the world’s largest.

The New Administrative Capital is located in the area between the Cairo-Suez and Cairo-Ain Sokhna roads, east of the regional ring road. This is roughly 60km from the cities of Suez and Ain Sokhna.