Egypt Is Moving Its Capital To The Desert – All You Need to Know About the Lavish City

Egypt is fast tracking the works of its lavish new capital in the middle of the desert, east of its current capital, Cairo, so that from the beginning of the summer the first public employees begin to relocate, before the delayed official inauguration of the president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s flagship project.

In the heart of the brand new city, workers put the finishing touches on an avenue of ministries reminiscent of pharaonic temples and the associated Islamic complex, made up of two parliamentary domes and a massive presidential building.

Egypt Prepares to Move to Its Lavish New Capital

A monorail will run through the financial district, dominated by a 385-meter-high central tower that is almost complete. Beyond that, is the silhouette of a 10-kilometer-long park, in the background of which a huge mosque stands out.

Model of the New City

The city, known simply as the New Administrative Capital, was designed to run on smart technology on virgin land, away from the pollution and chaos of Cairo. It will also boast its own university headquarters, entertainment venues and diplomatic quarter.

But the progress of the works has been marked by ups and downs, and when the financing of the United Arab Emirates proved to be insufficient, in 2015, the military and the Egyptian government took over the 25 billion dollars of the estimated cost of the first phase, with direct investments outside the budget, with some being from international sources.

The coronavirus pandemic also delayed works, and when the government moves in, not even the first of the three planned phases, which will cover 168 square kilometres, will be completed.

“All phase 1 projects have a completion rate of over 60%,” said Khaled el-Husseiny, a spokesman for the new Egyptian capital.

Representations of the New Capital of Egypt

The official added that the delayed move by public employees will start in July, before the city’s official inauguration, scheduled for the end of the year.

State of the Art Technology

There will be an electronic monitoring center for infrastructure and urban security, the roofs will be covered with solar panels, absolutely all payments will be electronic – no cash circulation – and the city guarantees 15 square meters of green space per permanent resident.

“In this new city, we try to fix all the known problems of the past,” says Husseiny.

The finished city is slated to be home to at least 6 million residents, and the second and third phases are basically residential developments.

It will take decades for the project to be completed, but the government will have full operational capacity from its new headquarters while the works continue, says Amr Khattab, a spokesman for the Ministry of Housing, responsible for the execution of the city’s residential neighborhoods.

What no one knows is how long it will take for Egypt’s seat of power and cynosure shifts from Cairo to the impressive new capital in the middle of the desert, 45 kilometers from the bounty of the Nile. So far, thousands of residential units stand empty along the way. along the route of entry to the city. Completion of the financial district, which has yet to be touted, is scheduled for 2023.

Construction of the electric train and monorail line is already underway. The first 50,000 public employees who will start working here during the summer will have a free bus service.

According to Khattab, 5,000 of the 20,000 housing units in the first residential neighborhood have already been sold, which will be delivered in May.

On Monday, the Al-Sisi government announced $96 million in incentives for public employees chosen for the transfer.

Land Sale

Officials say that the city will later include social housing and will begin to finance itself with the sale of land, although it is not clear how much income they have generated through that route so far.

Of the $25 billion in the first phase, about $3 billion is being spent in the government district, says Husseiny.

The official adds that the government obtained some international funding for the rail line, with a $3 billion Chinese loan that helped finance the business district, which is being built by the China State Construction Engineering Corporation, the largest construction company in the world.

Al-Sisi has embarked on multiple infrastructure megaprojects and national development programs, and makes it clear that he does not intend to neglect the rest of the regions.

“We are not leaving Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said, or the other provinces. We are moving forward together with the old and the new,” the president said last week, adding that the inauguration of the capital will mark “the birth of a new state.”

While the government’s argument that the new capital can reduce congestion in Cairo has merit, there is also concern that the new city is unreachable and inaccessible to many.

“There will be those who can live there, and those who cannot,” says Alaa Ibrahim, a 39-year-old electrician from the Imbaba neighborhood, a popular area of Cairo.

From Reuters