The Ministry of Housing, Utilities, and Urban Communities has allocated a budget of EGP 37 billion to the New Urban Communities Authority (NUCA) this year in a plan to attract new investments and implement projects, Minister of Housing Mostafa Madbouly said in an interview with Daily News Egypt.
The ministry has moreover set policies that were considered controversial due to increasing the prices of lands in Greater Cairo, 6thof October City, and New Cairo which eventually results in high price of units,
The ministry seeks to implement new projects in efforts to overcome the slow growth in the real estate sector over the past few years; the projects focus on providing homes to middle-income citizens, as well as low-income citizens whose monthly salary is below EGP 1,500, whereby 6,000 social housing units have been offered recently, Madbouly said.
The ministry will also allocate 20,000 social housing units for unions and add a new segment in the social housing project which will focus on offering units to families with total incomes under EGP 5,000, as well as individual citizens with income under EGP 4,000, added Madbouly.
The Social Housing Law has not only been amended to include different segments of society, but also to include punishment for those who manipulate the law, who could face time in prison if the units were not allocated and subsidized by state.
Middle-income citizens will also be offered lands and units, with EGP 14 billion allocated to connect utilities to 30,000 acres in new cities that have potential for building private housing.
The ministry is moreover committed to providing units to middle-income citizens through the Dar Misr Project, which will provide 31,800 units in eight cities this year, while the second phase will include 25,000 units in 12 cities, and the third phase will include 55,000 units in 17 cities.
In efforts to resolve the US dollar shortage, the ministry is offering lands to Egyptians living abroad through Beit Al Watan project that contains 4,788 plots of land in New Cairo, New Damietta, 6th of October, Sheikh Zayed, Badr, New Assiut, New Qena, and New Aswan.
Beit Al Watan is also launching a new phase in the Talaat Moustafa Group;s Madinaty and Rehab compounds in New Cairo. The most recent offering included 3,000 lands plots within the project, 2,000 of which are in New Cairo, in addition to 2,568 other units in Madinaty and Rehab.
The ministry seeks to private foreign investments to boost major real estate projects, such as the New Administrative Capital, New El Alamein, and East Port Said, in efforts to initiate growth in the sector and overcome its obstacles of the past years, Madbouly stated.
