Minister of Housing, Utilities, and Urban Communities Assem El-Gazzar and Minister of Justice Omar Marwan held a meeting with officials from the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) to discuss facilitating real estate financing procedures in the presence of officials from the two ministries as well as Mai Abdel Hamid — Head of the Social Housing and Mortgage Subsidy Fund. El-Gazzar stressed the need to develop a sustainable system for real estate financing to provide financing agencies with more facilities to encourage citizens to buy housing units using the real estate financing system and to increase the size of the portfolio allocated by banks for real estate financing, explaining that a change in ideas and policies is needed regarding the relationship between financing and development projects. He also emphasised the importance of the role of real estate investment funds, which contributed greatly to the recovery of the real estate market and capital markets in some Arab countries. For his part, Marawan said that his ministry is ready to issue any legal solutions in order to facilitate the real estate financing process, stressing the need to strengthen the role of real estate financing companies and provide more facilities to encourage citizens to benefit from such a mechanism. Chairperson of the Financial Regulatory Authority Mohamed Omran discussed the new products that can be relied upon and help in revitalising the real estate sector, including the securitisation of future rights and financial rights of real estate developers and government agencies and the importance of revitalising real estate investment funds. Abdel Hamid added that it is important to communicate with the CBE and banks in the coming period with the aim of facilitating real estate financing procedures, and for there to be a follow-up to the growth of real estate financing outside low- and middle-income financing initiatives, so that the real estate finance market expands and includes the customer segment. She also stressed the importance of activating the secondary market for bonds, as it will provide long-term financing to banks and encourage them to expand real estate financing and increase financing terms, explaining that it was agreed during the meeting to prepare some proposals to simplify the mortgage procedures and the required documents.
