Egypt is getting ready to relocate to its new capital
Egypt is racing to build a new capital city in the desert east Cairo before civil servants arrive this summer. What is happening in the administrative capital now?
- Workers are finishing up a series of ministries in the city’s heart.
- They echo the architecture of pharaonic Temples and border a raised Islamic complex and two domed parliament buildings.
- A monorail will pass through a commercial district, where a 385-meter tower central is near completion.
- The contours of a 10-km park that extends to a gigantic mosque are beginning to take shape.
- The New City of Egypt is simply known as the New Administrative Capital.
- It was built to use smart technology on virgin land, far from Cairo’s noisiness.
- It will have universities, leisure facilities, and a diplomatic district.
- It has not made any progress and Emirati funding was canceled shortly after its announcement in 2015. In 2015, the military and the government assumed the $25 billion cost of the first stage, injecting off-budget capital.
- Several foreign loans and financing were obtained.
- Progress was slowed by the coronavirus pandemic, which halted the first phase of the three-phase plan, which covered 168 kilometers. The government will continue to move in.
- Khaled El-Husseiny, the spokesperson for the new capital, stated that “the rate of completion has exceeded 60% across all projects.”
- He stated that civil servants will be transferred in July before the official opening scheduled for October 2021.
- This new capital will be a model for Egypt’s future high-tech technology.
- Officials stated that control centers will electronically monitor security and infrastructure, that roofs will be covered with solar panels, and that payments will not be made in cash.
- Husseiny stated, “We are trying to solve all the issues we had in our past in the new capital.”
- It is anticipated that the final city will house at least 6,000,000 residents. The second and third phases of the project are primarily residential.
- It will take many decades, but the government will still be able to function as normal while construction continues, according to Amr Khattab (spokesman for Housing Ministry), which is responsible for building parts of the city.
It is not clear how far or fast Egypt’s center of gravity will shift from Cairo to the capital 45 kilometers from the Nile. For the moment, thousands upon thousands of empty residential blocks lie on either side of the highway that leads into the new city, The 2023 completion of the business district is still to be marketed.
Monorail and electric train links are currently being constructed, Shuttle buses will be provided to transport the first 50,000 civil servants who are expected to move to the capital this summer.
- Monday’s announcement by Sisi’s office included 1.5 billion Egyptian Pounds ($96 Million) in incentives to civil servants who are moving to the city. According to Reuters
- Husseiny stated that of the initial $25 billion costs, $3 billion was being spent on the government district.
- International financing was secured for rail links. A $3 billion Chinese loan helped to finance the business district built by China State Construction Engineering Corp.
- Sisi, who is involved in multiple mega-projects for infrastructure and national development, said that other regions would not be overlooked.
- “We are not moving away from Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said, or any other province. The president stated last week that he was moving forward with both the old and new together. He said that the capital’s opening would be the “birth of a new state“.
