Real Estate Development Chamber, Administrative Control Authority to end problems of real estate developers

MoUs were signed at the economic conference in Sharm El-Sheikh have been converted into contracts, says minister

The Real Estate Development Chamber announced that it is cooperating with the Administrative Control Authority to solve the issues of investors with a group of ministries and government agencies. According to the chamber, it has succeeded in solving 20 problems so far.
The newly formed Real Estate Development Chamber at the Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI) added that it prepares a number of new initiatives aimed at increasing the development rates and at facilitating the business of real estate companies. These initiatives includes cooperation with the Administrative Control Authority, which has entered into force, as well as cooperation protocols with the Administrative Prosecution Authority and the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), according to chairperson of the chamber Tarek Shoukry.
Shoukry said that the cooperation protocol with CAPMAS is in place to provide the information needed by real estate developers in order to guide their investment in its rightful place to serve development, where developers face a great lack of information and statistics.
Shoukry added that the chamber is in contact with the Ministry of Housing, Utilities, and Urban Communities to solve the problem of a high-interest rate on land instalments—applied retrospectively—which is considered a great burden on developers, especially after the recent increase in interest rates by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE).
He pointed out that the chamber is collaborating with the parliament's Housing Committee in discussing laws proposals that regulate the real estate sector to achieve a balance in the relationship between developers and customers without harming either party at the expense of the other as well as the relationship between developers with government agencies.
For his part, Minister of Housing Mostafa Madbouly said that the chamber's initiative to transfer building licences to consulting offices will enter into force in July and will start in a number of cities, which are in great demand for licences.
Madbouly added that the problem of the interest rate on the instalments of land is under study with a number of parties because the exceptional circumstances experienced by the companies do not require additional new burdens.
"Furthermore, the ministry coordinates with the parliament and the chamber to prevent misleading advertising in the real estate investment sector in order to preserve this important sector," the minister noted." The ministry has activated the idea of partnership with the private sector in a number of projects. "The memorandums of understanding (MoUs) that we signed at the economic conference in Sharm El-Sheikh in March 2015 have been converted into contracts, and the companies we have contracted with have started implementing investment projects," the ministry said.
The Minister of Housing said that a new package of partnership projects with the private sector would also be announced soon, stressing that the ministry and the government are keen to push the real estate investment, considered one of the main locomotives of the Egyptian economy.
Madbouly added that the ministry is preparing to offer 50 plots of land for real estate investment to achieve an integrated urban development in the new cities, with areas ranging from 4 to 400 acres.
He pointed out that 28,000 plots of land will be offered to citizens through public lot in different areas and suitable for different tranches and divided into social housing, privileged land, and over-privileged lands.
The parliament's Housing Committee is studying a number of projects regulating the real estate sector, including the unified Construction Law and the activation of the transfer of granting building licences to consulting offices in order to reduce the role of the municipalities in cooperation with the Egyptian Engineers Syndicate, which will nominate the consulting offices, according to the head of the committee, Alaa Waly.
Waly added that the committee is studying the law of real estate developers to establish a federation similar to the Egyptian Federation for Construction and Building, which grants licences to companies and regulates their work.