CAIRO: Minister of Housing, Utilities and Urban Planning Ahmed El-Maghrabi opened Wednesday the 2010 edition of Next Move, the largest real estate investment and finance exhibition in Cairo. With more than 50 major real estate companies participating, this year's exhibition is bigger and flashier. “There has been a tremendous change since [Next Move 2008]. The number of visitors is exceeding our expectations and the number of developers coming to the show is increasing, too. The space we are getting is bigger; as you see we have nearly 700 square meters and ours is one of the biggest booths,” Ashraf El-Gharib, marketing and sales director at Rooya Group, told Daily News Egypt This year Rooya Group is offering residential and commercial units as well as office space and resort properties. Their highlight is the Stone Towers project, comprising 18 office buildings in New Cairo offering 560,000 square meters of office space. He pointed out the presence of foreign visitors from the Middle East and beyond, ready to invest in Egyptian real estate. Sandra Keldany, New Giza's marketing manager, also sees this year's Next Move as different. “This year the companies that are participating are more select. It's only the big players; we are all offering similar products with some variation and we have the same target,” she said. At the exhibition, New Giza was presenting its namesake residential project west of Cairo. The integrated community will be fully equipped and will host a branch of Johns Hopkins University, a sports club, two hotels and a golf course. Healthcare will be provided by New Giza's own medical center operated in conjunction with the Johns Hopkins Hospital. A lot of exhibitors are hoping to close deals that will boost up their “post-crisis” sales. “We did more than very [well] last year and this year we are expecting more and more,” says Nael Shoukry, director of public relations at Better Home. “We are expecting mainly B to C [type deals],” he adds. The company is to launch its Cityscape mall in Sixth of October in July 2010. More than 70 percent of its commercial area has been already leased and 30 percent being withheld to be offered after the opening. At Next Move, lavish booths and dynamic displays stretch across Cairo's Exhibition Center. Eye-catchers like speedboats, classical musicians and a mini golf course were set up to attract the large stream of visitors. Hassan Allam, for example, set up a small bar pavilion to showcase their new hospitality project, the Jaz Little Venice Hotel in Ain Sokhna. “We are also presenting big projects in Sharm El-Sheikh. We are talking about 1 million square meters. We'll have five hotels offering 3,000 rooms. Then we'll have the second phase with a residential part offering 4,000 residential units,” Mohamed Hassan Allam, managing director of Hassan Allam, said. “We want it to be the landmark of Sharm El-Sheikh,” he said. “Demand is growing tremendously. We have an increase between 7 to 10 percent per year in [demand of] everything: residential, touristic, business and commercial,” he pointed out. Hassan Allam is looking outside the Egyptian market as well, into Saudi Arabia and Algeria, where they already have offices and are looking for suitable land plots for new developments. Next Move will continue until May 1 and will aim at surpassing last year's 20,000 visitors.
