Member of the housing committee of parliament Mohamed Khalifa said that the lack of information about land in Egypt leads to the loss of resources in the process of providing services for construction, and that the creation of a land pricing law will enhance the process of funding which depends on the availability of information about land prices.
Khalifa added that the government had assigned different committees from different ministries to evaluate land prices, and this multifaceted system had led to this unstable system of pricing.
In a public meeting entitled “Methods of reforming the pricing system of lands in Egypt” on Wednesday, Khalifa stressed the need to review the value of land before pricing and use for construction to speed up the development of the real estate sector.
Wael Zaki, real estate pricing evaluator at the appeals committee of the Egyptian Real Estate Taxation Authority, clarified the concept of land ownership saying that it is not an absolute ownership and is limited only to using the benefits of the land, while the natural resources beneath it are owned by the state.
He added that we should differentiate between benefiting from lands and benefiting from buildings established on them if we consider the lands as property.
Zaki pointed out that agricultural land prices depend on nearby urban development, which leads to obvious disparity in the prices of these lands.
He noted that the geographic information system, which presents great data about lands in the form of indicators, can be very useful for pricing them.
Zaki added that evaluating lands will help the government set policies whether by subsidising the prices or liberalising them in the free market.
Representative of Free Egyptians Party Hussein Koraim stressed the necessity to have fixed indicators for land pricing under the supervision of the State Accountability Authority.
He added that including the usufruct system in the pricing and licensing of lands will enhance investments and boost the economy in Egypt. Besides, Koraim added, reforming the municipalities system will have a great impact on the pricing system due to the full control that local authorities have over building licenses.
