Minister of Housing: Establishing 24 new cities to accommodate 32 million people distributed across the governorates

Engineer Assem Al-Gazzar, Minister of Housing and Urban Communities, reviewed the achievements of the Egyptian state during the past 9 years in the housing sector.

He began his speech at the National Projects and Infrastructure session, within the activities of the Story of a Homeland Conference “Between Vision and Achievement,” held in the New Administrative Capital, on Sunday evening, with the speech of the great writer Naguib Mahfouz: “The scourge of our neighborhood is oblivion.”

He stated that the Ministry has made many efforts in compressed timetables since 2014, adding: “Some of them were according to the president’s good will regarding the timetables, and some of them were not according to his good expectations due to matters that are up to us or beyond our control.”

He reviewed the five most important challenges facing the urban development file, including:

1. Narrow spatial space

2. The gap between supply and demand for housing units

3. Traffic jams

4. Poor drinking water supply and sanitation services.

5. He noted that the number of citizens in 2011 amounted to 89 million, who lived on an area of 7%, saying that “the urbanization rate reached 42% because the population increase is mostly in the countryside, and many of the margins of urban urbanization are Trift.”

Today, Sunday, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi will witness the sessions of the second day of the Story of a Homeland Conference, “Between Vision and Achievement,” in the presence of Prime Minister Dr. Mostafa Madbouly, a number of ministers and senior statesmen, as well as a large number of representatives of Egyptian society and its various sectors, experts and specialists in various fields domains.

The first day witnessed important sessions focusing on economic axes; Senior ministers participated in it, such as Dr. Hala Al-Saeed, Minister of Planning and Economic Development, Dr. Mohamed Maait, Minister of Finance, Ahmed Samir, Minister of Trade and Industry, and Dr. Rania Al-Mashat, Minister of International Cooperation. These sessions dealt with the government’s policies and programs in supporting the Egyptian economy.

Dr. Assem Al-Gazzar, Minister of Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities, reviewed how the housing map has changed over the course of 9 years in front of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who is witnessing the activities of the second day of the conference “The Story of a Homeland... Between Vision and Achievement.”

Al-Gazzar said in his speech that 24 new cities had been established to accommodate 32 million people, distributed equally geographically across the different regions of the republic. he added that the Decent Life project is considered one of the projects that worked to increase the urbanization rate.