New airport to be established in Egypt’s New Administrative Capital

CAIRO – 3 August 2018: Egypt's Minister of Civil Aviation Younis al-Masry said that a new airport larger than the Cairo International Airport will be established in Egypt’s New Administrative Capital.

He announced in Thursday statements to media outlets that he agreed with President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi on establishing this new airport which is expected to be larger and wider than Cairo International Airport, with all the needed facilities attached to guarantee passengers’ comfort.

Currently, experts are working on choosing the most suitable place within the capital for establishing the new airport. Masry affirmed that this new airport will aim to link most of Egypt’s governorates and achieve a wide average of passenger traffic.

President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi has laid the first stone of the New Administrative Capital in East Cairo in October 2017. 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 was planned to 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.

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.