Egypt Today’s round up of Capital City inauguration highlights

CAIRO – 11 October 2017: Located 45 kilometers east of Cairo, President Sisi inaugurated the opening of Egypt’s new administrative and financial capital.

The ceremony is held at Al Masah Capital Hotel, which was inaugurated Friday to be one of the largest hotels globally. Al Masah Resort is more than 10 acres, containing a conference area, lakes, a mosque, and trade mall with unique architectural designs.



During his visit to the new capital, President Sisi toured the city’s residential complex and governmental district along with al-Masah hotel.

Egypt today provides a quick catch-up of the event’s big announcements.



New Capital City’s urban planning

The New Administrative Capital’s business park will encompass 20 towers, including the tallest tower in Africa at the height of 345 meters, Minister of Housing Mostafa Madbouly said Wednesday.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the first phase of the New Administrative Capital, Madbouly said that President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi will sign a contract with China Electronic System Engineering Company (CESEC) for the business park on Wednesday.



Madbouly said that the new capital will have 650km of road networks, wide streets, green spaces, an arts and culture city and several water treatment plants.



“The new city will also have an electric train that will start from Salam City to the New Capital,” he said.

Madbouly noted that construction works of the residential district started in May 2017 to include 25,400 units, including residential apartments, villas and commercial units.



“We have 500,000 new residential units already built under the social housing project for low-income citizens,” Madbouly said, adding that the ministry has launched more than 100,000 units under the same project for reservation a few weeks ago.



Madbouly stressed that they launched projects targeting other segments of society, such as the Dar Misr project, which targets medium-income citizens. “We are targeting 150,000 residential units under that project,” he said.



Head of the Armed Forces’ Engineering Authority Kamil El-Wazir said that the authority started working on the project in July 2016.



“We were assigned to work on the government district, which will spread over 1,133 feddans and will include buildings of ministries and the parliament,” Wazir said, adding that they are working on the residential district, the New Capital Airport, universities and a network of roads and tunnels.



“ Highlights of president Sisi’s speech

Egypt is looking forward to having dozens of cities like the New Administrative Capital, President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi said during his speech at the inauguration ceremony of the new city’s first phase.

“It is too early to say we achieved something… this is only the first step,” Sisi said, noting that the New Administrative Capital will be registered in history as a major achievement and a turning point in Egypt’s development.



Sisi assured that the 20,000 housing units implemented by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development will be completed by mid-next year or by its end, at the latest. In another context, The president told Major General Kamel El-Wazir, head of the Armed Forces Engineering Authority, to overcome all the obstacles facing any ongoing project, saying that over the past three years, 125,000 land plots have been offered and are now fully booked, in addition to another 35,000.

Sisi thanked Minister of Electricity Mohamed Shaker for his efforts to set up the city’s high-tech electricity distribution network.



The recently-implemented electricity development projects cost the state around LE 483 billion, Shaker said during the inauguration ceremony of the new city’s first phase.



This came in response to Sisi’s request to engage the public in details and the costs of electricity development projects that have been running continually over the past two years.