Minister of Tourism Hisham Zaazou will preside over the commencement of construction of an EGP 14bn tourist project on the Northern Coast of Egypt that is being financed and built by Maxim Holdings with the attendance of the governor of Marsa Matruh.
The project, purported to be the largest on the Northern Coast, will lie in Sidi Abd El-Rahman district in the governorate of Matruh and will be built on an area of 2,230 acres, according to government accounts.
The project will consist of seven hotels, 25,000 residential units, a hospital, schools, a university, sports and commercial areas, a water station, a sanitation station, and a power plant. The project is expected to be completed within seven to eight years.
The project was conceived between Maxim Holding and the Ministry of Tourism last October during an investment conference in Marsa Matruh.
Maxim Holding has implemented several projects since 1990 in Nasr City, Heliopolis, and the Northern Coast. The company owns a gated community in Shorouk city.
In April 2015, Maxim Holding won an auction offered by Ministry of Civil Aviation to develop a 189,000m area near Cairo International Airport to develop on a usufruct basis. The value of the contract was for EGP 9bn.
Maxim Holding also expected the opening of “Maxim Mall” in New Cairo during the first quarter of 2016. The Ministry of Investment offered several investments in the governorate of Marsa Matruh in the sectors of transport, industries, infrastructure, and tourism.
The full extent of the government’s involvement is not known but the Egyptian army is said to control the infrastructure of the country and land ownership. In February 2014, the Egyptian arm of UAE’s construction company Emaar Misr announced it paid EGP 72m to the armed forces to “modify the conditions of the units affiliated to the armed forces in the Uptown Cairo project area”.
The company also spent EGP 60m to construct alternative military facilities in return for using the western part of the land of Uptown Cairo. For Emaar Misr to continue working on the project, it had to sign a cooperation protocol with the ministers of Defence, Investment, and Local Development.
Egypt stated that it aims to attract local investment of about EGP 420bn in the current fiscal year. The government will provide EGP 60bn worth of this investment and the private sector will provide the remaining EGP 360bn.
