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Egypt’s New Capital City To Be Revealed ‘Soon’

February 27, 2015

Egypt’s Minister of Investment Ashraf Salman has announced that Egypt will its plan for the country’s new capital city within weeks.

According to The National, a UAE-based newspaper, Salman said the city’s plans will be revealed at Egypt’s economic conference that will be held in Sharm El Sheikh in March.

“We’re talking a very big city. It is just the size of New Cairo itself … It is the ‘new New Cairo’,” said the Minister to The National.

The Minister added that the city, which will be 70,000 acres, will take 12 years to build and will be built to the east of Cairo near Ain El-Sokhna.

While it is not clear who will be responsible for the construction of the city, reports earlier this week in Bloomberg revealed that UAE’s Emaar is in negotiations with the Egyptian government to build the new capital.

Plans to build the new city were first announced by Egypt’s Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb in July 2014.

Why build a new city

The proposed city would aim at transferring Ministries, government buildings and foreign embassies from down-town Cairo to the new capital.

According to Prime Minister Mehleb, the new city would be established on the Suez-Cairo-Ain Sokhna road. The project will aim at reducing congestion in down-town Cairo and population density.

The plan to build a new capital city appears to be in line with the economic and development policies of Egypt’s new President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi.

Egypt’s new President is tackling development through the implementation of a plan titled ‘The Map of the Future.’

The plan, a creation by former NASA geologist Farouk El-Baz, involves building new cities, making use of more than 90 percent of Egypt’s territory that remains abandoned and constructing new roads, railroads and airports.

‘The Map of the Future’ also envisions the use of renewable energy (including solar and wind power) to provide a sustainable energy source for Egypt’s rapidly growing population.

President Sisi’s plans aim to boost development, diversify energy sources and tackle Egypt’s high unemployment.

Cairo is one of the most overpopulated cities in the world, with almost 20 million people. The city also suffers from high pollution, traffic congestion and hundreds of illegally constructed buildings.

Comments (19)

  1. neil sutherland says:

    I applied to enter the ‘open’ competition to design the new capital, in alliance with a couple of engineers who are household names in Egypt. No reply. Closed process?
    I actually designed it at the same time I wrote a democratic constitution, and matched the buildings on the ground to the institutions in the constitution; e.g., President and Parliament at opposite ends of main boulevard, facing each other, ‘pillars of state’ [religion, military, bank, judges] and foreign affairs next to President, ‘populist’ like media and social affairs next to Parliament, etc,
    No private cars allowed on this boulevard.

    1. Kareem Gamal says:

      Have you tried contacting them to follow up?!

    2. neil sutherland says:

      No, I have constitution and museum projects, and in those cases I keep being told about committee processes behind closed doors, and those are cases where I have high credentials.

    3. Karim Abo Zeid says:

      Can you please share you full correspondences with the officials in Egypt. It would be great to show the reality of what is happening on ground to the Egyptians who are living abroad, therefore they do not live in another la la land…

    4. neil sutherland says:

      Actually, I’ve met Ministers & Governors, & everyone is friendly and helpful. but at some stage I’m told about a ‘committee’, whom I can’t meet, don’t know their names, what we call a ‘black box’..I’m only successful when I get to do my song and dance routine, in this case a capital city i designed three years ago.

    5. Miriam says:

      Yup. Sounds like Egypt to me. Everyone friendly…nothing gets done. You need an inside person.

    6. Karim Abo Zeid says:

      This sounds typical Egyptian routine to me… Things heat up on media, people get excited and pay to support economy then it all goes up to the black hole where no one knows the status of that project i.e. 1M units by Arabtec in Cairo. Shame! I wonder when we who are living abroad will be able to go back to our country to work equally and use our experienc we have gained abroad to develop Egypt… Sounds a fairy tale to me.

    7. Mohamed says:

      Where did you apply for this open competition?

    8. neil sutherland says:

      The government announcement was on January 13 2015, if you want the Ministry and names of officials. .