The World Bank will present, at the "Development Partners Initiative" conference on Tuesday, its plans for developing a mortgage system in Egypt in the upcoming period, according to press release Sunday. The World Bank has pledged its support for Egypt's housing sector for over 10 years, and has cooperated with the Egyptian government in developing the social housing programme. This was launched to provide low-income citizens with 1m housing units, with an amount of $500m, to serve more than 3.6 million citizens. During the conference, banking leaders will discuss the Central Bank of Egypt's (CBE) initiative to support financing low-income and middle-income housing to activate the real estate sector in Egypt. Additionally, they will discuss the obstacles commercial banks face in participating in developing this sector. The discussion will touch upon the role of banks in designing various mortgage programmes, to suit all segments of society. They will also look into making use of Islamic financing formulas such as Murabaha and Ijara to participate in activating this sector. The Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA) will present the legislative amendments it has approved, and their impact on the revitalisation of the mortgage sector. The EFSA has also declared the deadline for the implementation of the Regulations for the Mortgage Law, and adopted the Statute of the Egyptian Mortgage Federation. Furthermore, the EFSA will discuss the role of real estate funds in supporting mortgages, and bridging the housing loans gap. Mortgage companies have raised the fund provided in the real estate sector to LE270.4m between January and March 2014, compared to LE126.5m in the same period last year. The total of mortgages granted by all companies since the beginning of the real estate finance activity until the end of March 2015 increased to EGP 5bn. This figure compares to LE4.4bln during the same period in 2014, showing an increase rate of 16.4%, according to the EFSA. Source: Daily News Egypt
