Emaar Misr's total investment portfolio in Egypt will reach EGP 53bn during 2013, said the company's chief marketing officer, Nabil Amasha, during the press conference held at the Cityscape real estate exhibition in Cairo on Thursday. During the conference, Emaar also announced that it has signed construction contracts for three projects worth EGP 500m million during the first quarter of 2013. “This expansion of our investment portfolio in Egypt shows our company's confidence in the Egyptian real estate market," said Amasha. “We expect it to recover very soon in the middle to long term." “We are very optimistic”, he continued. “There is healthy competition in the market now, and from our end, we never over promise to our clients as we understand the market fundamentals very well and have a transparency policy with them." “As we see in Cityscape, a lot of companies have become more intelligent regarding their choices and have become more detail-oriented than before,” he added. Amasha announced that it will launch a new extend payment plan “which stretches for up to 7 years, and without any paid installments in 2013″. He also added that the company has indeed faced a multitude of problems during the current unfavourable market conditions, especially the US Dollar exchange rate. He added, however, that “we welcome our customers to visit our construction sites in order to see the construction work in live progress". “This will allow us to build confidence between ourselves and our customers," he continued. According to Amasha, the company is in “a better position better than last year". Emaar has had a very low percentage of cancelations, he said, “as the company understand their customers very well and understand their needs". “The company's team worked day and night to complete projects on time and to complete the delivery schedule," he added. Emaar currently has three main projects in Egypt. The first is Uptown Cairo, built on on 4.5m square metres of land connected to the city with the Emaar drive road. “We started handover in Uptown Cairo this year and we will continue to hand over a significant number of units," said Amasha. “We also launched another component of Uptown Cairo called Emaar Square with investments of EGP 3m, and which is planned to be the commercial touristic business hub for both Uptown Cairo and Cairo itself. Amasha explained that Emaar Saquare is designed as a fully-fledged commercial hub, “such as those in Paris or Los Angeles". The Emaar Drive road will directly connect Uptown Cairo to the 6th October Bridge, with the second phase connecting the east of city with the Fifth Settlement, investing a total of EGP 250m. The road also will also be used as a connection between both sides of the city as an additional solution to the traffic problem in Greater Cairo. The second project is Mivida located in the Fifth Settlement.The project will be set up on an area of 3.8m square metres with 5,000 residential units comprising villas and townhouses. The units will be delivered during the first phase this year. Marassi on the north cost is Emaar's third project, covering over 6.5m square metres. It is designed to be an international touristic destination for Egypt's Mediterranean north coast. “Marassi has delivered 500 units from total of 5,000 already, and we received about 70,000 visitors last summer seeking to enjoy the coast and the services we provide there," said Amasha.
