The Wadi Degla Property Development Company has spoken to government bodies about obtaining land in 6 October City for a new real-estate project, as well as about land in other governorates outside Cairo, in order to expand the Company's portfolio, chairman Maged Helmi said in an interview with Safiya Mounir. Helmi said the firm plans to double its land portfolio in the coming years through purchases or based on usufruct or partnership agreements. He said that partnerships were the best framework since they offered liquidity for development projects using funds that would otherwise be pumped into buying land. He added that it was important for publicly owned enterprises to make more of their land available on a partnership basis since they own more land than the private sector but have less capacity to develop it. He added that partnership agreements would encourage development and lead to profits for both parties. The company was carrying out various projects at the present time, Helmi said, including developing the Magawish Resort in Hurghada. It recently signed a contract to develop the area with Misr Tourism, a subsidiary company of the Holding Company for Tourism and Hotels. Total investment in the project is LE1.6 billion, and the project is slated for completion within eight years. Helmi said the project would convert more than 842,000 m2, or the entire area of the Magawish Resort, into a qualitatively different type of integrated tourist community. The project is expected to earn revenues of LE2.3 billion. Misr Tourism will take LE670 million of sales revenue and develop 441 rooms in Magawish. The Wadi Degla Property Development Company paid LE50 million on signing the contract for the new development and had guaranteed LE400 million as the minimum anticipated revenue. It is also working on a project for a fully-serviced residential compound, Maadi Promenade, which will sit on 35,000 m2 of land in Zahraa Al-Maadi outside Cairo. The project includes 26 buildings to be completed over five years. At another project site, Neopolis in Future City, which covers 545.5 feddans, the company intends to build 14,000 residential units with total expected revenues of LE13 billion. Helmi said the company was targeting LE6 billion in contracted sales on its projects by the year's end. He said that from 2017 to 2025 the company had a number of projects planned for middle-income customers, in order to meet the growing need for such units. He added that building a 90 m2 middle-range residential unit costs up to LE300,000. He added that Wadi Degla was getting ready to join an initiative to construct 500,000 residential units for low- and middle-income groups, in order to meet the needs of this large group of customers and demonstrate corporate social responsibility.
