The Industrial Development Authority (IDA), under the chairmanship of Ahmed Abdul Razek, stressed that investors that were allocated industrial lands in 2016/2017 must commit to all conditions and seriousness criteria contained in the land offer brochure submitted by the IDA in the cities of Badr, 10th of Ramadan, Borg El-Arab, and El-Sadat, along with all cities included in the offering. Abdul Razek announced the withdrawal of any piece of land from its owner who does not comply with the conditions, including the commitment with the timetable for establishing projects and running plants, as well as dealing on the allocated lands through selling the plots or leasing them, except after establishing the factories and operating them for the period stipulated by the conditions. He stressed that any action taken by the owner of the land, otherwise, will not be valid and will be ineffective before the IDA being contrary to the terms of allocation. The IDA will revoke the lands and re-offer them again in that case. The controls obligate the investor to lay the factory bases within a year and obtain an operating licence and start the actual work during three years. They ban dealing on lands except after two years of the factories being operative. He noted that this comes in implementation of the policies of the Ministry of Trade and Industry to counter land banking of industrial plots, which he described as unacceptable acts that will not be tolerated, especially since the IDA has a long waiting list of local, Arab, and foreign investors who want to obtain land plots toe expand existing projects or build new ones. He said that the state aims to pick up the pace of the economic development plans and provide new jobs. He said the IDA has revoked 600 land plots from non-serious investors this year with plans to offer the lands again. He pointed out that, in parallel to these procedures, the IDA is working on several axes to provide the industrial lands to serious investors, where it offered some 17.5 million sqm of land plots, next to 8 million sqm for industrial developers, as part of the Ministry of Trade and Industry plans to provide 60m sqm to investors through to 2020.
