The Civil Engineering Contractor March 2019 | Page 15

INFRA AFRICA
NORTH AFRICA
EGYPT
Talks fail with Chinese developer over Egypt’s new capital in the desert
as-yet unnamed site marked out over 725km 2 of
desert 35km east of Cairo. It was envisioned that
6.5-million people would eventually settle there
from the capital and that it would be developed
through a Dubai-style real estate business model.
However, critics of the plan point out that dozens
of new desert cities launched in Egypt over the
past 50 years now sit as ghost towns, and that the
speculative real estate model creates dysfunctional
spaces where ordinary Egyptians cannot afford to
live. Initially, Egypt counted on Gulf property
investors to take the new capital plan forward, but
when that did not materialise, Chinese builders and
developers entered the scene.
In October last year, state-owned contracting
giant CSCEC signed a USD3-billion deal to build a
central business district in the new capital, featuring
Africa’s tallest building. Despite doubts in some
quarters, the Egyptian government is pressing on
with constructing the new capital.
Fears exist that Egypt’s new capital city might become as much of a dead city as the Giza pyramids are.
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CEC March 2019 | 13
Egypt’s dream of a gleaming new capital in the desert
east of Cairo has been dealt a blow by the failure of
negotiations with a Chinese developer that was going
to invest USD20-billion in the scheme. Officials in
charge of delivering the vast New Administrative
Capital said two years of talks with China Fortune
Land Development (CFLD) fell through over how
to share out revenue from the real estate element of
the project.
Egypt wanted 40% but CFLD offered only 33%,
said Khaled Elhusseiny, spokesman for the military-
controlled company in charge of the scheme, the
New Administrative Capital for Urban Development
(ACUD), reports Bloomberg. The apparent failure of
the negotiations will fuel doubts over the commercial
viability of Egypt’s grand vision, announced at an
investment conference in March 2015.
Worried by overpopulation and congestion in
Cairo, the plan is to move the entirety of Egypt’s
state apparatus and many foreign embassies to the