Cityscape Egypt has resumed its Business Breakfast, under the patronage and support of the Ministry of Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities. The event was attended by a stellar line-up of speakers, under the theme “Beyond Local Ambitions”.
Cityscape Egypt Business Breakfast took place on 30 March at the Fairmont Nile City Cairo, offering a high-profile platform for debate, discourse, and information exchange, as it addressed the most pressing real estate issues in 2022.
This year’s Business Breakfast was a prelude to the Cityscape Egypt conference taking place in early September and the Cityscape Egypt Expo from 21-24 September at the Egypt International Exhibition Center. It tackled the core issues of Egypt’s real estate sector.
The half-day event brought together government officials and renowned experts to address topics such as real estate transparency, the country’s property industry and its prospects for 2022-2023, Egypt’s Green Ambitions, and the underlying difficulties confronting the Egyptian real estate market on a larger scale.
The discussion focused on the most important concerns in Egypt’s real estate sector, reviewing the country’s progress on new cities, urban development, infrastructure and ways to encourage investment, in addition to offering updated study of supply and demand by sector, major city and size and presented solutions on how to create attractive ROI for international and local investors.
Robier Danial, Exhibition Manager for Cityscape, said: “Being back for the 11th edition of Cityscape was essential to keep pace with the Egyptian government’s massive achievements in the development of the real estate sector. We aspire to be a hub for developers to display their projects in the New Cities and the massive expansion the government attained, making real estate one of the most promising sectors in Egypt”.
Khaled Abbas, Deputy Minister of Housing, provided a glimpse into Egypt’s ambitions to demonstrate itself as an international investment focus for residential real estate. A Q&A session followed the panel with Cityscape Chairperson Fathallah Fawzy.
Abbas revealed that the ministry has started holding meetings with the Ministry of Justice, to discuss a new draft law to organize the real estate development sector.
He stressed that the real estate sector has proven over the past 10 years its ability and strength in facing problem crises, whether local or global, and that it is proceeding at a sound and correct pace, unlike what happened in other countries.
Egypt’s real estate market is currently facing a new challenge due to high inflation rates the world is witnessing. Moreover, there is a need to meet periodically with real estate developers to develop solutions that enable everyone to overcome these difficulties and turn the current crisis into opportunities that can be benefited from, he disclosed.
He pointed out that real estate development law is currently being studied in the form of a chapter within the Federation of Developers, which is being launched, elaborated that discussions with developers resulted in the need for a single entity and umbrella to regulate the market.
Abbas commented that it is not possible to make a classification for developers similar to contracting companies, as this matter does not exist in any of the countries of the world.
Bashir Moustafa, CEO of First Group, moderated a session, under the title “an insight into the Egyptian real estate market: a discussion between real estate developers.” The session gave an overview of the real estate market and a look at the consumer and homebuyer spending over the last year. Moreover, the session posed questions like what are some of the trends that will headline the market in 2022. Egypt’s new cities – what opportunities are these sparking in investors? What does the government’s move to NAC in 2022 will mean for the market? Moreover, the panel addressed sustainability, and posed a question on how organizations are incorporating sustainable and green practices within real estate? The panel was attended by Ahmed ElFar, COO of New City Developments; Ahmed ElAttal, Chairperson of El-Attal Holding; and Waleed Mokhtar, CEO of IWAN Developments.
Despite the constant introduction of new variables into the market, Egypt’s real estate industry has continued to provide promising results and performance. Accordingly, Cityscape’s Business Breakfast examined the fundamental difficulties confronting the Egyptian real estate sector on a larger scale, with the bulk of projects on pace to deliver by Egypt Vision 2030.
