Social Housing and Mortgage Finance Fund (SHMFF) signed a joint cooperation protocol with the Suez Canal Authority and Banque Misr to finance 1,200 units allocated to the authority’s workers union, Invest-Gate reports.

Under the agreement, the bank will provide mortgage finance for the union’s middle-class employees, coming as part of the Central Bank of Egypt’s (CBE) EGP 50 bn financing program launched in December 2019, according to a ministerial statement published on February 29.

The fund’s CEO Mai Abdel Hamid said the protocol comes within the framework of the CBE’s initiative to provide middle-income individuals with subsidized loans at a declining 10% interest rate for a maximum period of 20 years.

The initiative is eligible only for Egyptian citizens, who earn a maximum monthly income of EGP 40,000 in the case of individuals and EGP 50,000 for households, according to the statement. In addition, potential clients are not entitled to apply for more than one fully finished unit, which should not exceed 150 square meters and with a maximum value of EGP 2.25 mn, it added.

Earlier last year, the CEO announced that a total of 707,000 social housing units are being finalized to accommodate 226,000 citizens, which will be complemented with 761,000 service projects.