Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly on Sunday reviewed investment opportunities in the country's tourism and construction sectors with the aim of increasing private sector partnerships to develop state-owned assets. During a meeting with Minister of Public Enterprise, Mohamed Shimy, and the chairman of the Holding Company for Tourism and Hotels, Madbouly stressed the need for the optimal use and development of state assets, especially in the tourism sector, to increase the number of hotel rooms and double tourist arrivals. "Our goal in this meeting is to review investment opportunities in this sector," Madbouly said. "We encourage partnership with the private sector, in accordance with the State Ownership Policy Document, with the aim of injecting investments to develop these assets and achieve optimal governance." The CEO of property developer Emaar Misr, Mostafa El Kady, also attended the meeting. The minister of public enterprise reviewed a number of available investment opportunities, including several historic buildings in downtown Cairo suitable for conversion into hotels and hotel apartments. These include the Cosmopolitan building, the Shamla building, and several branches of the historic Omar Effendi department store. Other opportunities presented included the revival of the Continental Hotel and the Misr Tourism Tower in Cairo's Abbasiya Square, as well as the Cleopatra Hotel and the Cotton Palace building in Alexandria. The minister also highlighted several available land plots, including the Carnelia Beach project in Marsa Alam on the Red Sea, which has a total area of about 386,000 square metres with a 1,000-metre beachfront. Other plots are available on the Maadi and Helwan cornishes in Cairo, in the Mokattam hills, and in the new city of Heliopolis. Shimy said the ministry has already presented these investment opportunities to a number of Egyptian and foreign investors as part of a plan to attract private sector investment partnerships.
