Egypt: Major building boom breathes life into 37 new smart city projects

Situated nearly 45km east of Cairo, Egypt’s New Administrative Capital has already taken shape and played host to several glitzy events. The aptly named city, which Egyptian officials liken to South Africa’s Pretoria, is where the new government headquarters are situated. Relocation of some 50,000 state employees is planned to begin within a few months.

The first phase of construction work has been underway for the past five years, with $20bn of investments pumped into an area spanning 40,000 feddans (16,800ha). When all three phases are complete, the fully-developed new capital should be able to accommodate up to 6.5 million people on 70,000ha – almost the size of Singapore.

Building boom

It has been a boon for construction companies both domestic and foreign. China State Construction Engineering Corporation won a deal in 2017 to build 20 big towers in the New Administrative Capital and they are due to be completed by next year. The building boom is also a boost for Orascom Construction, a local company that signed $1bn in projects in the last quarter of 2020, with almost two-thirds of them in Egypt.

In September, Orascom, The Arab Contractors and Germany’s Siemens signed a deal with the government to build a high-speed rail link from Ain Sokhna to Alexandria. The Arab Contractors company is building the new Senate, the new parliament and a huge Islamic cultural centre in the newly constructed city.

[…] the key issue now with building new cities is how to operate them, and what level of governance will be implemented to cope with the new challenges, such as the integration of technologies into day-to-day life.

Hundreds of kilometres to the west – on the Mediterranean – New Alamein, Egypt’s second most eminent mega-development, has been growing since 2018 on a 20,160-hectare parcel of land and is designed to house two million people. Like the new capital, New Alamein bristles with towers and skyscrapers (which are rare in Egypt) as well as government offices.

Both projects are part of 37 smart cities that are either at the planning stage or are already being built under the auspices of the government and the military, which is heavily entrenched in the contracting business.