Major real estate developers say that the country’s property sector employs 14% of the country’s manpower and accounts for 15% of the gross domestic product along with the contracting sector, Invest-Gate reports.

“The urban development sector is the bellwether of the national economy as it boosts more than 90 industries in the market,” according to SODIC Managing Director Maged Sherif.

The government has to offer 23,000 feddans of land annually to overcome the demand-supply gap in properties, Sherif adds.

“The government has to establish about 350,000-400,000 residential units annually to narrow the property gap,” Sherif says in his speech at the Cityscape conference which began on March 29. He points out that 95% of Egypt’s population lives along the Nile on less than 5% of its territory.

“The state should also introduce an economic and administrative reform program to reinvigorate the urban development sector as well as find a mechanism to resolve the mortgage crisis,” Sherif notes.