Egypt's Engineering Consultants Group (ECG) said on Tuesday the Ministry of Communications had awarded it a mandate to manage two smart village projects. ECG is set to supervise the on-site implementation of two smart villages in Sadat and New Beni Suef cities, chairman Amr Allouba said. Works on the first phase of the New Beni Suef smart village project have already started. It is being built on a space of 54 feddans in the East Nile Delta, Allouba added. The second anticipated smart village will be built in Sadat City, 94 kilometres (54.4 miles) northwest of Cairo, spanning over 50 feddans. Works on the first phase of the Sadat City smart village will commence at the end of this year, the Egyptian official said. Aiming to support the country's electronics industry as a catalyst for development, Egypt launched an ambitious national plan to build more smart villages across the country, choosing seven cities, with investments worth around 20 billion Egyptian pounds ($1.1 billion). At spaces ranging between 450 feddans and 500 feddans, the seven smart villages will be in Aswan, Beni Suef, Assiut, 10th of Ramadan, Sadat, Borg Al-Arab, and Ismailia.
