Assem El Gazzar, Minister of Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities, and Omar Marwan, Minister of Justice, hold a meeting with the Central Bank of Egypt’s (CBE) officials to discuss facilitating real estate financing procedures.

The meeting was held in the presence of Mohamed Omran, Head of the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA), and Mai Abdel Hamid, CEO of the Social Housing and Real Estate Finance Support Fund, Invest-Gate reports.

El Gazzar stresses the need to develop a sustainable system for real estate financing and to provide financing agencies for more facilities to encourage citizens to purchase housing units using the real estate financing system and to increase the portfolio allocated by banks for real estate financing.

Moreover, El Gazzar highlights the importance of changing ideas and policies regarding the relationship between financing and real estate development projects, stressing the importance of the role of real estate investment funds, which contributed greatly to revival of the real estate market and the financial markets in some Arab countries.

For his part, Marwan, says: “We are ready to issue any legal solutions in order to facilitate the real estate financing process.”

Additionally, Omran discusses the new products that can be relied on and help in reviving the real estate sector, including the securitization of future rights, the securitization of financial rights for real estate developers and government agencies and the importance of refreshing real estate investment funds.

In the same vein, Abdel Hamid adds: “it is important to communicate with the Central Bank and banks in the coming period, to facilitate real estate financing procedures, and follow-up to the growth of real estate financing beyond the financing initiatives for low and middle income, so that the real estate finance market expands and includes customer segment and units that don’t meet the conditions of the current real estate finance initiatives.”

She also stresses the importance of activating the secondary market for bonds, as it will provide long-term financing for banks and encourage them to expand real estate financing and increase financing terms, explaining that it is agreed during the meeting to prepare some recommendations to simplify the mortgage procedures and the documents required of clients and to work with the CBE on facilitating real estate financing procedures besides achieving growth in financing rates.