A Building Boom Is Changing the Face of Egypt
A futuristic $27 billion city is the latest bid to extend and reimagine greater Cairo.
Egypt’s Building Bonanza
Egypt, which saw its first building boom more than 4,000 years ago, is seeing a fresh flurry of construction.
The North African nation that’s home to the Pyramids of Giza saw the announcement of another megaproject at the weekend: a $27 billion futuristic city from the Talaat Moustafa Group, Egypt’s largest listed real-estate developer.
Dubbed The Spine and planned for the eastern outskirts of Cairo, it’s set to span 2.4 square kilometers. It will sport green car-free avenues and some 165 tower blocks for residential and business use.
TMG’s plan is only the latest bid to extend and reimagine greater Cairo, which was founded some 1,000 years ago and is home to more than 20 million people.
Over the past decade, an infrastructure spending spree has delivered a vast network of roads and bridges that’s partly eased notorious traffic jams, and added public transport options including a monorail.
A new administrative capital costing around $58 billion and boasting the continent’s tallest tower has been built in the desert some 45 kilometers east of Cairo’s city center.
Private developers have recently taken the lead.
Last summer, Palm Hills, Mountain View and other companies announced plans to set up a $29 billion residential and commercial project known as Jirian that will use water rerouted from the Nile.
The reshaping goes beyond Cairo. The nation’s tourist-friendly coastlines have been transformed too, most prominently in Ras El-Hekma, a vast Mediterranean headland that helped draw in $35 billion of United Arab Emirates investment in early 2024.
Egypt has been hard hit by the Iran war, setting back efforts to revamp the economy.
Construction of the new Dubai-style developments should help bolster economic growth and limit the fallout.
bloomberg.com
