Real estate developers presented key challenges facing property export in the Egyptian market, the wasted opportunity to benefit from large market share in global real estate export, and ways to enable Egypt to gain a portion of the value of the global property export. Walid Mokhtar, CEO of Iwan Developments and a member of the Real Estate Export Council, said that the global real estate sales volume exceeds $300bn, adding that the share of some countries of that value reaches approximately $15bn, utilising the real estate sector into a source of national income in some countries. Mokhtar pointed out that those sales include sales to both individuals and foreign investment funds. Although foreign investment funds are interested in the real estate and tourism sector, the focus should be on launching local real estate investment funds, which will encourage international funds to be present in Egypt, he elaborated. Mokhtar believes that Egypt's real estate sector should be strengthened, by launching several local real estate investment funds, and support of banks. “This will encourage foreign investment funds to invest in Egypt,” he stressed. Mokhtar pointed out that marketing property to foreign customers requires centring the marketing advantages of buying a property in Egypt, encouraging the customer to buy, and facilitating the procedures. He added that challenges facing the issue of exporting property are being dealt with in cooperation with Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly. The law which grants residency in exchange for the property purchases would encourage and support the efforts of the state and developers together, “provides hard currency for the country and boosting real estate activates as well.” For his part, Ahmed Lashin, CEO of Tower Developments said that the launch of integrated real estate and tourism projects is a strong opportunity to expedite marketing of those projects to the foreign client, as well as, obtaining a share of global real estate export. On the other hand, Ahmed El Attal, chairperson of El Attal Holding, explained that there are 3 types of tourism, namely archaeological tourism, therapeutic tourism and beach tourism. “However, in Egypt, beach tourism was limited to the presence of a beach, without providing diverse services, but currently the state is focused on the launch of new coastal cities that are operational all year long,” he emphasised. He said that the New Alamein and Galala Plateau are two models for the launch of integrated services cities, that can be operational throughout the year. “These cities are between the coastline and the city, providing more than one type of housing and not only for a specific residential segment. Likewise, the government is providing middle-income housing and services within New Alamein,” El Attal concluded.
